Bardelys the Magnificent : being an account of the strange wooing pursued by the Sieur Marcel de Saint-Pol, Marquis of Bardelys, and of the things that in the course of it befell him in Languedoc, in the year of the rebellion

IRDELYSTHE
I MAGNIFICENT

F1N1

BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

BARDELYS
THE MAGNIFICENT

Being an Account of the Strange Wooing pursued by

the Sieur Marcel de Saint-Pol, Marquis of Bardelys,

and of the things that in the course of it befell him

in Languedoc, in the year of the Rebellion

BY
RAFAEL SABATINI

TORONTO
THOMAS ALLEN

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, IQOS, BY C. ARTHUR PEARSON, LTD.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

AI MIEI GENITORI

CONTENTS

I. THE WAGER 3

II. THE KING'S WISHES 17

III. RENE DE LESPERON 23

IV. A MAID IN THE MOONLIGHT 32
V. THE VICOMTE DE LAVE DAN 45

VI. IN CONVALESCENCE 57

VII. THE HOSTILITY OF SAINT-£USTACHE 71

VIII. THE PORTRAIT 96

IX. A NIGHT ALARM 106

X. THE RISEN DEAD 121

XI. THE KING'S COMMISSIONER 134

XII. THE TRIBUNAL OF TOULOUSE 145

XIII. THE ELEVENTH HOUR 163

XIV. EAVESDROPPING 174
XV. MONSIEUR DE CHATELLERAULT is ANGRY 186

XVI. SWORDS! 197

XVII. THE BABBLING OF GANYMEDE 209

XVIII. SAINT-EUSTACHE IS OBSTINATE 222

XIX. THE FLINT AND THE STEEL 236

viii CONTENTS

XX. THE "BRAVI" AT BLAGNAC 255

XXI. Louis THE JUST 270

XXII. WE UNSADDLE 281

BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

BARDELYS
THE MAGNIFICENT

CHAPTER I
THE WAGER

SPEAK of the Devil," whispered La Fosse in my
ear, and, moved by the words and by the signifi-
cance of his glance, I turned in my chair.

The door had opened, and under the lintel stood the
thick-set figure of the Comte de Chatellerault. Be-
fore him a lacquey in my escutcheoned livery of red-
and-gold was receiving, with back obsequiously bent,
his hat and cloak.

A sudden hush fell upon the assembly where a
moment ago this very man had been the subject of our
talk, and silenced were the wits that but an instant
since had been making free with his name and turning
the Languedoc courtship — from which he was newly
returned with the shame of defeat — into a subject for
heartless mockery and jest. Surprise was in the air,
for we had heard that Chatellerault was crushed by
his ill-fortune in the lists of Cupid, and we had not
looked to see him joining so soon a board at which —
or so at least I boasted — mirth presided.

And so for a little space the Count stood pausing on
my threshold, whilst we craned our necks to contem-
plate him as though he had been an object for inquisi-

4. BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

tive inspection. Then a smothered laugh from the
brainless La Fosse seemed to break the spell. I
frowned. It was a climax of discourtesy whose im-
pression I must at all costs efface.

I leapt to my feet, with a suddenness that sent my
chair gliding a full half-yard along the glimmering
parquet of the floor, and in two strides I had reached
the Count and put forth my hand to bid him wel-
come. He took it with a leisureliness that argued
sorrow. He advanced into the full blaze of the candle-
light, and fetched a dismal sigh from the depths of his
portly bulk.

"You are surprised to see me, Monsieur le Mar-
quis," said he, and his tone seemed to convey an apol-
ogy for his coming — for his very existence almost.

Now Nature had made my Lord of Chatellerault as
proud and arrogant as Lucifer — some resemblance
to which illustrious personage his downtrodden re-
tainers were said to detect in the lineaments of his
swarthy face. Environment had added to that store
of insolence wherewith Nature had equipped him, and
the King's favour — in which he was my rival — had
gone yet further to mould the peacock attributes of
his vain soul. So that this wondrous humble tone of
his gave me pause; for to me it seemed that not even a
courtship gone awry could account for it in such a
man.

"I had not thought to find so many here," said he.
And his next words contained the cause of his dejected
air. "The King, Monsieur de Bardelys, has refused to
see me ; and when the sun is gone, we lesser bodies of the
courtly firmament must needs turn for light and com-
fort to the moon." And he made me a sweeping bow.

THE WAGER 5

"Meaning that I rule the night?" quoth I, and
laughed. "The figure is more playful than exact, for
whilst the moon is cold and cheerless, me you shall find
ever warm and cordial. I could have wished, Mon-
sieur de Chatellerault, that your gracing my board
were due to a circumstance less untoward than His
Majesty's displeasure."

"It is not for nothing that they call you the Mag-
nificent," he answered, with a fresh bow, insensible to
the sting in the tail of my honeyed words.

I laughed, and, setting compliments to rest with
that, I led him to the table.

"Ganymede, a place here for Monsieur le Comte.
Gilles, Antoine, see to Monsieur de Chatellerault.
Basile, wine for Monsieur le Comte. Bestir there!"

In a moment he was become the centre of a very
turmoil of attention. My lacqueys flitted about him
buzzing and insistent as bees about a rose. Would
Monsieur taste of this capon a la casserole, or of this
truffled peacock? Would a slice of this juicy ham a
1'anglaise tempt Monsieur le Comte, or would he give
himself the pain of trying this turkey aux olives ? Here
was a salad whose secret Monsieur le Marquis's cook
had learnt in Italy, and here a vol-au-vent that was
invented by Quelon himself.

Basile urged his wines upon him, accompanied by a
page who bore a silver tray laden with beakers and
flagons. Would Monsieur le Comte take white
Armagnac or red Anjou? This was a Burgundy of
which Monsieur le Marquis thought highly, and this a
delicate Lombardy wine that His Majesty had oft
commended. Or perhaps Monsieur de Chatellerault
would prefer to taste the last vintage of Bardelys?

6 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

And so they plagued him and bewildered him until
his choice was made; and even then a couple of them
held themselves in readiness behind his chair to fore-
stall his slightest want. Indeed, had he been the very
King himself, no greater honour could we have shown
him at the Hotel de Bardelys.

But the restraint that his coming had brought with
it hung still upon the company, for Chatellerault was
little loved, and his presence there was much as that
of the skull at an Egyptian banquet.

For of all these fair-weather friends that sat about
my table — amongst whom there were few that had
not felt his power — I feared there might be scarcely
one would have the grace to dissemble his contempt of
the fallen favourite. That he was fallen, as much his
words as what already we had known, had told us.

Yet in my house I would strive that he should have
no foretaste of that coldness that to-morrow all Paris
would be showing him, and to this end I played the
host with all the graciousness that role may bear, and
overwhelmed him with my cordiality, whilst to thaw
all iciness from the bearing of my other guests, I set
the wines to flow more freely still. My dignity would
permit no less of me, else would it have seemed that I
rejoiced in a rival's downfall and took satisfaction
from the circumstance that his disfavour with the
King was like to result in my own further exaltation.

My efforts were not wasted. Slowly the mellowing
influence of the grape pronounced itself. To this in-
fluence I added that of such wit as Heaven has graced
me with, and by a word here and another there I set
myself to lash their mood back into the joviality out
of which his coming had for the moment driven it.

THE WAGER 7

And so, presently, Good-Humour spread her mantle
over us anew, and quip and jest and laughter decked
our speech, until the noise of our merry-making drift-
ing out through the open windows must have been
borne upon the breeze of that August night down the
rue Saint-Dominique, across the rue de TEnfer, to the
very ears perhaps of those within the Luxembourg,
telling them that Bardelys and his friends kept an-
other of those revels which were become a byword in
Paris, and had contributed not a little to the sobriquet
of "Magnificent" which men gave me.

But, later, as the toasts grew wild and were pledged
less for the sake of the toasted than for that of the
wine itself, wits grew more barbed and less restrained
by caution; recklessness hung a moment, like a bird of
prey, above us, then swooped abruptly down in the
words of that fool La Fosse.

"Messieurs," he lisped, with that fatuousness he
affected, and with his eye fixed coldly upon Chatelle-
rault, "I have a toast for you." He rose carefully to
his feet — he had arrived at that condition in which
to move with care is of the first importance. He
shifted his eye from the Count to his glass, which
stood half empty. He signed to a lacquey to fill it.
"To the brim, gentlemen," he commanded. Then, in
the silence that ensued, he attempted to stand with
one foot on the ground and one on his chair; but en-
countering difficulties of balance, he remained up-
right — safer if less picturesque.

"Messieurs, I give you the most peerless, the most
beautiful, the most difficult and cold lady in all France.
I drink to those her thousand graces, of which Fame
has told us, and to that greatest and most vexing

8 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

charm of all — her cold indifference to man. I pledge
you, too, the swain whose good fortune it may be to
play Endymion to this Diana.

"It will need," pursued La Fosse, who dealt much
in mythology and classic lore- "it will need an
Adonis in beauty, a Mars in valour, an Apollo in song,
and a very Eros in love to accomplish it. And I fear
me," he hiccoughed, "that it will go unaccomplished
since the one man in all France on whom we had
based our hopes has failed. Gentlemen, to your feet!
I give you the matchless Roxalanne de Lavedan!"

Such amusement as I felt was tempered by appre-
hension. I shot a swift glance at Chatellerault to
mark how he took this pleasantry and this pledging
of the lady whom the King had sent him to woo, but
whom he had failed to win. He had risen with the
others at La Fosse's bidding, either unsuspicious or else
deeming suspicion too flimsy a thing by which to steer
conduct. Yet at the mention of her name a scowl
darkened his ponderous countenance. He set down
his glass with such sudden force that its slender stem
was snapped and a red stream of wine streaked the
white tablecloth and spread around a silver flower-
bowl. The sight of that stain recalled him to himself
and to the manners he had allowed himself for a
moment to forget.

"Bardelys, a thousand apologies for my clumsi-
ness," he muttered.

"Spilt wine," I laughed, "is a good omen."

And for once I accepted that belief, since but for the
shedding of that wine and its sudden effect upon him,
it is likely we had witnessed a shedding of blood. Thus
was the ill-timed pleasantry of my feather-brained La

THE WAGER 9

Fosse tided over in comparative safety. But the topic
being raised was not so easily abandoned. Made-
moiselle de Lavedan grew to be openly discussed, and
even the Count's courtship of her came to be hinted
at, at first vaguely, then pointedly, with a lack of
delicacy for which I can but blame the wine with
which these gentlemen had made a salad of their
senses. In growing alarm I watched the Count. But
he showed no further sign of irritation. He sat and
listened as though no jot concerned. There were
moments when he even smiled at some lively sally,
and at last he went so far as to join in that merry com-
bat of wits, and defend himself from their attacks,
which were made with a good-humour that but thinly
veiled the dislike he was held in and the satisfaction
that was culled from his late discomfiture.

For a while I hung back and took no share in the
banter that was toward. But in the end — lured per-
haps by the spirit in which I have shown that Cha-
tellerault accepted it, and lulled by the wine which in
common with my guests I may have abused — I came
to utter words but for which this story never had been
written.

" Chatellerault," I laughed, "abandon these de-
fensive subterfuges; confess that you are but uttering
excuses, and acknowledge that you have conducted
this affair with a clumsiness unpardonable in one
equipped with your advantages of courtly rearing."

A flush overspread his face, the first sign of anger
since he had spilled his wine.

"Your successes, Bardelys, render you vain, and of
vanity is presumption born," he replied contemp-
tuously.

io BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

"See!" I cried, appealing to the company. "Ob-
serve how he seeks to evade replying! Nay, but you
shall confess your clumsiness."

"A clumsiness," murmured La Fosse drowsily, "as
signal as that which attended Pan's wooing of the
Queen of Lydia."

"I have no clumsiness to confess," he answered
hotly, raising his voice. "It is a fine thing to sit here
in Paris, among the languid, dull, and nerveless
beauties of the Court, whose favours are easily won
because they look on dalliance as the best pastime
offered them, and are eager for such opportunities of
it as you fleering coxcombs will afford them. But this
Mademoiselle de Lavedan is of a vastly different
mettle. She is a woman; not a doll. She is flesh and
blood; not sawdust, powder, and vermilion. She has a
heart and a will; not a spirit corrupted by vanity and
licence."

La Fosse burst into a laugh.

"Hark! O, hark!" he cried, "to the apostle of the
chaste!"

"Saint Gris!" exclaimed another. "This good
Chatellerault has lost both heart and head to her."

Chatellerault glanced at the speaker with an eye in
which anger smouldered.

"You have said it," I agreed. "He has fallen her
victim, and so his vanity translates her into a com-
pound of perfections. Does such a woman as you have
described exist, Comte? Bah! In a lover's mind, per-
haps, or in the pages of some crack-brained poet's
fancies; but nowhere else in this dull world of ours."

He made a gesture of impatience.

"You have been clumsy, Chatellerault," I insisted.

THE WAGER 11

"You have lacked address. The woman does not live
that is not to be won by any man who sets his mind
to do it, if only he be of her station and have the
means to maintain her in it or raise her to a better.
A woman's love, sir, is a tree whose root is vanity.
Your attentions flatter her, and predispose her to
capitulate. Then, if you but wisely choose your time
to deliver the attack, and do so with the necessary
adroitness — nor is overmuch demanded — the battle
is won with ease, and she surrenders. Believe me,
Cha teller ault, I am a younger man than you by full
five years, yet in experience I am a generation older,
and I talk of what I know."

He sneered heavily. " If to have begun your career
of dalliance at the age of eighteen with an amour that
resulted in a scandal be your title to experience, I
agree," said he. "But for the rest, Bardelys, for all
your fine talk of conquering women, believe me when
I tell you that in all your life you have never met a
woman — for I deny the claim of these Court crea-
tures to that title. If you would know a woman, go to
Lavedan, Monsieur le Marquis. If you would have
your army of amorous wiles suffer a defeat at last, go
employ it against the citadel of Roxalanne de Lav6-
dan's heart. If you would be humbled in your pride,
betake yourself to Lavedon."

"A challenge! "roared a dozen voices. "A challenge,
Bardelys!"

"Mais voyons," I deprecated, with a laugh, "would
you have me journey into Languedoc and play at
wooing this embodiment of all the marvels of woman-
hood for the sake of making good my argument ? Of
your charity, gentlemen, insist no further."

12 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

"The never-failing excuse of the boaster," sneered
Chatellerault, "when desired to make good his boast."

"Monsieur conceives that I have made a boast?"
quoth I, keeping my temper.

"Your words suggested one — else I do not know
the meaning of words. They suggested that where I
have failed you could succeed, if you had a mind to
try. I have challenged you, Bardelys. I challenge you
again. Go about this wooing as you will; dazzle the
lady with your wealth and your magnificence, with
your servants, your horses, your equipages, and all
the splendours you can command; yet I make bold to
say that not a year of your scented attentions and
most insidious wiles will bear you fruit. Are you suffi-
ciently challenged ?"

"But this is rank frenzy!" I protested. "Why
should I undertake this thing?"

"To prove me wrong," he taunted me. "To prove
me clumsy. Come, Bardelys, what of your spirit?"

"I confess I would do much to afford you the proof
you ask. But to take a wife! Pardi! That is much in-
deed!"

"Bah!" he sneered. "You do well to draw back.
You are wise to avoid discomfiture. This lady is not
for you. When she is won, it will be by some bold and
gallant gentleman, and by no mincing squire of dames,
no courtly coxcomb, no fop of the Luxembourg, be
his experiences of dalliance never so vast."

"Po' Cap de Dieu!" growled Cazalet, who was a
Gascon captain in the Guards, and who swore strange,
southern oaths. "Up, Bardelys! Afoot! Prove your
boldness and your gallantry, or lie forever shamed; a
squire of dames, a courtly coxcomb, a fop of the

THE WAGER 13

Luxembourg! Mordemondiou ! I have given a man a
bellyful of steel for the half of those titles!"

I heeded him little, and as little the other noisy
babblers, who now on their feet — those that could
stand — were spurring me excitedly to accept the
challenge, until from being one of the baiters it seemed
that of a sudden the tables were turned and I was be-
come the baited. I sat in thought, revolving the busi-
ness in my mind, and frankly liking it but little.
Doubts of the issue, were I to undertake it, I had none.

My views of the other sex were neither more nor
less than my words to the Count had been calculated
to convey. It may be — I know now that it was —
that the women I had known fitted Chatellerault's de-
scription, and were not over-difficult to win. Hence,
such successes as I had had with them in such comedies
of love as I had been engaged upon had given me a
false impression. But such at least was not my
opinion that night. I was satisfied that Chatellerault
talked wildly, and that no such woman lived as he
depicted. Cynical and soured you may account me.
Such I know I was accounted in Paris; a man satiated
with all that wealth and youth and the King's favour
could give him; stripped of illusions, of faith and of
zest, the very magnificence — so envied — of my
existence affording me more disgust than satisfaction,
since already I had gauged its shallows.

Is it strange, therefore, that in this challenge flung
at me with such insistence, a business that at first I
disliked grew presently to beckon me with its novelty
and its promise of new sensations?

"Is your spirit dead, Monsieur de Bardelys?"
Chatellerault was gibing, when my silence had en-

I4 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

dured some moments. " Is the cock that lately crowed
so lustily now dumb ? Look you, Monsieur le Marquis,
you are accounted here a reckless gamester. Will a
wager induce you to this undertaking ?"

I leapt to my feet at that. His derision cut me like
a whip. If what I did was the act of a braggart, yet it
almost seems I could do no less to bolster up my
former boasting — or what into boasting they had
translated.

"You'll lay a wager, will you, Chatellerault?" I
cried, giving him back defiance for defiance. A breath-
less silence fell. "Then have it so. Listen, gentlemen,
that you may be witnesses. I do here pledge my
castle of Bardelys, and my estates in Picardy, with
every stick and stone and blade of grass that stands
upon them, that I shall woo and win Roxalanne de
Lavedan to be the Marquise of Bardelys. Does the
stake satisfy you, Monsieur le Comte? You may set
all you have against it," I added coarsely, "and yet, I
swear, the odds will be heavily in your favour."

I remember it was Mironsac who first found his
tongue, and sought even at that late hour to set re-
straint upon us and to bring judgment to our aid.

"Messieurs, messieurs!" he besought us. "In
Heaven's name, bethink you what you do. Bardelys,
your wager is a madness. Monsieur de Chatellerault,
you'll not accept it. You'll — "

"Be silent," I rebuked him, with some asperity.
"What has Monsieur de Chatellerault to say?"

He was staring at the tablecloth and the stain of the
wine that he had spilled when first Mademoiselle de
Lavcdan's name was mentioned. His head had been
bent so that his long black hair had tumbled forward

THE WAGER 15

and partly veiled his face. At my question he suddenly
looked up. The ghost of a smile hung on his sensuous
lips, for all that excitement had paled his countenance
beyond its habit.

"Monsieur le Marquis/1 said he, rising, "I take
your wager, and I pledge my lands in Normandy
against yours of Bardelys. Should you lose, they will
no longer call you the Magnificent; should I lose — • I
shall be a beggar. It is a momentous wager, Bardelys,
and spells ruin for one of us."

"A madness!" groaned Mironsac.

" Mordioux ! " swore Cazalet. Whilst La Fosse, who
had been the original cause of all this trouble, vented
his excitement in a gibber of imbecile laughter.

"How long do you give me, Chatellerault ? " I asked,
as quietly as I might.

"What time shall you require?"

"I should prefer that you name the limit," I
answered.

He pondered a moment. Then —

"Will three months suffice you?" he asked.

"If it is not done in three months, I will pay,"
said I.

And then Chatellerault did what after all was, I
suppose, the only thing that a gentleman might do
under the circumstances. He rose to his feet, and,
bidding the company charge their glasses, he gave
them a 'parting toast.

" Messieurs, drink with me to Monsieur le Marquis
de Bardelys's safe journey into Languedoc, and to the
prospering of his undertaking."

In answer, a great shout went up from throats that
suspense had lately held in leash. Men leapt on to

16 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

their chairs, and, holding their glasses on high, they
acclaimed me as thunderously as though I had been
the hero of some noble exploit, instead of the main
figure in a somewhat questionable wager.

"Bardelys!" was the shout with which the house
reechoed. "Bardelys! Bardelys the Magnificent!
Vive Bardelys!"

CHAPTER II
THE KING'S WISHES

IT was daybreak ere the last of them had left me,
for a dozen or so had lingered to play lansquenet
after the others had departed. With those that re-
mained my wager had soon faded into insignificance,
as their minds became engrossed in the fluctuations of
their own fortunes.

I did not play myself; I was not in the mood, and
for one night, at least, of sufficient weight already I
thought the game upon which I was launched.

I was out on the balcony as the first lines of dawn
were scoring the east, and in a moody, thoughtful
condition I had riveted my eyes upon the palace of
the Luxembourg, which loomed a black pile against
the lightening sky, when Mironsac came out to join
me. A gentle, lovable lad was Mironsac, not twenty
years of age, and with the face and manners of a
woman. That he was attached to me I knew.

'"Monsieur le Marquis," said he softly, "I am deso-
lated at this wager into which they have forced you."

"Forced me?" I echoed. "No, no; they did not
force me. And yet," I reflected, with a sigh, "perhaps
they did."

"I have been thinking, monsieur, that if the King
were to hear of it the evil might be mended."

"But the King must not hear of it, Armand," I
answered quickly. " Even if he did, matters would be
no better — much worse, possibly."

1 8 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

"But, monsieur, this thing done in the heat of
wine — "

"Is none the less done, Armand," I concluded.
"And I for one do not wish it undone."

"But have you no thought for the lady?" he cried.

I laughed at him. "Were I still eighteen, boy, the
thought might trouble me. Had I my illusions, I
might imagine that my wife must be some woman of
whom I should be enamoured. As it is, I have grown
to the age of twenty-eight unwed. Marriage becomes
desirable. I must think of an heir to all the wealth of
Bardelys. And so I go to Languedoc. If the lady be
but half the saint that fool Chatellerault has painted
her, so much the better for my children; if not, so
much the worse. There is the dawn, Mironsac, and it
is time we were abed. Let us drive these plaguy
gamesters home."

When the last of them had staggered down my
steps, and I had bidden a drowsy lacquey extinguish
the candles, I called Ganymede to light me to bed and
aid me to undress. His true name was Rodenard; but
my friend La Fosse, of mythological fancy, had named
him Ganymede, after the cup-bearer of the gods, and
the name had clung to him. He was a man of some
forty years of age, born into my father's service, and
since become my intendant, factotum, majordomo,
and generalissimo of my regiment of servants and my
establishments both in Paris and at Bardelys.

We had been to the wars together ere I had cut my
wisdom teeth, and thus had he come to love me. There
was nothing this invaluable servant could not do. At
baiting or shoeing a horse, at healing a wound, at
roasting a capon, or at mending a doublet, he was alike

THE KING'S WISHES 19

a master, besides possessing a score of other accom-
plishments that do not now occur to me, which in his
campaigning he had acquired. Of late the easy life in
Paris had made him incline to corpulency, and his
face was of a pale, unhealthy fullness.

To-night, as he assisted me to undress, it wore an
expression of supreme woe.

"Monseigneur is going into Languedoc?" he in-
quired sorrowfully. He always called me his "sei-
gneur," as did the other of my servants born at
Bardelys.

" Knave, you have been listening," said I.

"But, monseigneur," he explained, "when Mon-
sieur le Comte de Chatellerault laid his wager — "

"And have I not told you, Ganymede, that when
you chance to be among my friends you should hear
nothing but the words addressed to you, see nothing
but the glasses that need replenishing? But, there!
We are going into Languedoc. What of it?"

"They say that war may break out at any mo-
ment," he groaned; "that Monsieur le Due de Mont-
morency is receiving reinforcements from Spain, and
that he intends to uphold the standard of Monsieur
and the rights of the province against the encroach-
ments of His Eminence the Cardinal."

"So! We are becoming politicians, eh, Ganymede?
And how shall all this concern us? Had you listened
more attentively, you had learnt that we go to Lan-
guedoc to seek a wife, and not to concern ourselves
with Cardinals and Dukes. Now let me sleep ere the

sun rises."

On the morrow I attended the levee, and I applied to
His Majesty for leave to absent myself. But upon

20 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

hearing that it was into Languedoc I went, he frowned
inquiry. Trouble enough was his brother already
making in that province. I explained that I went to
seek a wife, and deeming all subterfuge dangerous,
since it might only serve to provoke him when later he
came to learn the lady's name, I told him — withhold-
ing yet all mention of the wager — that I fostered the
hope of making Mademoiselle de Lavedan my mar-
quise.

Deeper came the line between his brows at that, and
blacker grew the scowl. He was not wont to bestow on
me such looks as I now met in his weary eyes, for
Louis XIII had much affection for me.

"You know this lady?" he demanded sharply.

"Only by name, Your Majesty."

At that his brows went up in astonishment.

"Only by name? And you would wed her? But,
Marcel, my friend, you are a rich man — one of
the richest in France. You cannot be a fortune-
hunter."

"Sire," I answered, "Fame sings loudly the praises
of this lady, her beauty and her virtue — praises that
lead me to opine she would make me an excellent
chatelaine. I am come to an age when it is well to wed;
indeed, Your Majesty has often told me so. And it
seems to me that all France does not hold a lady more
desirable. Heaven send she will agree to my suit!"

In that tired way of his that was so pathetic: "Do
you love me a little, Marcel?" he asked.

"Sire," I exclaimed, wondering whither all this was
leading us, "need I protest it?"

" No," he answered dryly; " you can prove it. Prove
it by abandoning this Languedoc quest. I have

THE KING'S WISHES 21

motives — sound motives, motives of political im-
port. I desire another wedding for Mademoiselle de
Lavedan. I wish it so, Bardelys, and I look to be
obeyed."

For a moment temptation had me by the throat.
Here was an unlooked-for chance to shake from me a
business which reflection was already rendering odious.
I had but to call together my friends of yesternight,
and with them the Comte de Chatellerault, and in-
form them that by the King was I forbidden to go a-
wooing Roxalanne de Lavedan. So should my wager
be dissolved. And then in a flash I saw how they
would sneer one and all, and how they would think
that I had caught avidly at this opportunity of freeing
myself from an undertaking into which a boastful
mood had lured me. The fear of that swept aside my
momentary hesitation.

"Sire," I answered, bending my head contritely,
"I am desolated that my inclinations should run
counter to your wishes, but to your wonted kindness
and clemency I must look for forgiveness if these same
inclinations drive me so relentlessly that I may not
now turn back."

He caught me viciously by the arm, and looked
sharply into my face.

"You defy me, Bardelys?" he asked, in a voice of
anger.

"God forbid, Sire!" I answered quickly. "I do but
pursue my destiny."

He took a turn in silence, like a man who is master-
ing himself before he will speak. Many an eye, I
knew, was upon us, and not a few may have been
marvelling whether already Bardelys were about to

22 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

share the fate that yesterday had overtaken his rival
Chatellerault. At last he halted at my side again.

"Marcel/' said he, but though he used that name
his voice was harsh, "go home and ponder what I have
said. If you value my favour, if you desire my love,
you will abandon this journey and the suit you con-
template. If, on the other hand, you persist in go-
ing — you need not return. The Court of France has
no room for gentlemen who are but lip-servers, no
place for courtiers who disobey their King."

That was his last word. He waited for no reply, but
swung round on his heel, and an instant later I beheld
him deep in conversation with the Duke of Saint-
Simon. Of such a quality is the love of princes — vain,
capricious, and wilful. Indulge it ever and at any cost,
else you forfeit it.

I turned away with a sigh, for in spite of all his
weaknesses and meannesses I loved this cardinal-
ridden king, and would have died for him had the need
occurred, as well he knew. But in this matter — well,
I accounted my honour involved, and there was now
no turning back save by the payment of my wager and
the acknowledgment of defeat.

CHAPTER III
REN£ DE LESPERON

THAT very day I set out. For since the King was
opposed to the affair, and knowing the drastic
measures by which he was wont to enforce what he
desired, I realized that did I linger he might find a
way definitely to prevent my going.

I travelled in a coach, attended by two lacqueys and
a score of men-at-arms in my own livery, all com-
manded by Ganymede. My intendant himself came
in another coach with my wardrobe and travelling
necessaries. We were a fine and almost regal cortege
as we passed down the rue de 1'Enfer and quitted
Paris by the Orleans gate, taking the road south. So
fine a cortege, indeed, that it entered my mind His
Majesty would come to hear of it, and, knowing my
destination, send after me to bring me back. To evade
such a possibility, I ordered a divergence to be made,
and we struck east and into Touraine. At Pont-le-
Duc, near Tours, I had a cousin in the Vicomte
d'Amaral, and at his chateau I arrived on the third
day after quitting Paris.

Since that was the last place where they would seek
me, if to seek me they were inclined, I elected to re-
main my cousin's guest for fifteen days. And whilst I
was there we had news of trouble in the South and of
a rising in Languedoc under the Due de Montmorency.
Thus was it that when I came to take my leave of
Amaral, he, knowing that Languedoc was my destina-

24 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

tion, sought ardently to keep me with him until we
should learn that peace and order were restored in the
province. But I held the trouble lightly, and insisted
upon going.

Resolutely, then, if by slow stages, we pursued our
journey, and came at last to Montauban. There we
lay a night at the Auberge de Navarre, intending to
push on to Lavedan upon the morrow. My father had
been on more than friendly terms with the Vicomte de
Lavedan, and upon this I built my hopes of a cordial
welcome and an invitation to delay for a few days the
journey to Toulouse, upon which I should represent
myself as bound.

Thus, then, stood my plans. And they remained
unaltered for all that upon the morrow there were wild
rumours in the air of Montauban. There were tellings
of a battle fought the day before at Castelnaudary,
of the defeat of Monsieur's partisans, of the utter
rout of Gonzalo de Cordova's Spanish tatterde-
malions, and of the capture of Montmorency, who
was sorely wounded — some said with twenty and
some with thirty wounds — and little like to live.
Sorrow and discontent stalked abroad in Languedoc
that day, for they believed that it was against the Car-
dinal, who sought to strip them of so many privileges,
that Gaston d'Orleans had set up his standard.

That those rumours of battle and defeat were true
we had ample proof some few hours later, when a
company of dragoons in buff and steel rode into the
courtyard of the Auberge de Navarre, headed by a
young spark of an officer, who confirmed the rumour
and set the number of Montmorency's wounds at
seventeen. He was lying, the officer told us, at Castel-

RENfi DE LESPERON 25

naudary, and his duchess was hastening to him from
Beziers. Poor woman ! She was destined to nurse him
back to life and vigour only that he might take his
trial at Toulouse and pay with his head the price of
his rebellion.

Ganymede who, through the luxurious habits of his
more recent years had — for all his fine swagger —
developed a marked distaste for warfare and excite-
ment, besought me to take thought for my safety and
to lie quietly at Montauban until the province should
be more settled.

"The place is a hotbed of rebellion," he urged. "If
these Chouans but learn that we are from Paris and of
the King's party, we shall have our throats slit, as I
live. There is not a peasant in all this countryside —
indeed, scarce a man of any sort — but is a red-hot
Orleanist, anti-Cardinalist, and friend of the Devil.
Bethink you, monseigneur! to push on at the present
is to court murder."

"Why, then, we will court murder," said I coldly.
"Give the word to saddle."

I asked him at the moment of setting out did he
know the road to Lavedan, to which the lying poltroon
made answer that he did. In his youth he may have
known it, and the countryside may have undergone
since then such changes as bewildered him. Or it may
be that fear dulled his wits, and lured him into taking
what may have seemed the safer rather than the like-
lier road. But this I know, that as night was falling
my carriage halted with a lurch, and as I put forth
my head I was confronted by my trembling intendant,
his great fat face gleaming whitely in the gloom above
the lawn collar on his doublet.

26 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

"Why do we halt, Ganymede?" quoth I.

"Monseigneur," he faltered, his trembling increas-
ing as he spoke, and his eyes meeting mine in a look of
pitiful contrition, "I fear we are lost."

"Lost?" I echoed. "Of what do you talk? Am I to
sleep in the coach?"

"Alas, monseigneur, I have done my best — "

"Why, then, God keep us from your worst," I
snapped. "Open me this door."

I stepped down and looked about me, and, by my
faith, a more desolate spot to lose us in my henchman
could not have contrived had he been at pains to do
so. A bleak, barren landscape — such as I could
hardly have credited was to be found in all that fair
province — unfolded itself, looking now more bleak,
perhaps, by virtue of the dim evening mist that
hovered over it. Yonder, to the right, a dull russet
patch of sky marked the west, and then in front of us
I made out the hazy outline of the Pyrenees. At sight
of them, I swung round and gripped my henchman by
the shoulder.

"A fine trusty servant thou!" I cried. "Boaster!
Had you told us that age and fat living had so stunted
your wits as to have extinguished memory, I had
taken a guide at Montauban to show us the way. Yet,
here, with the sun and the Pyrenees to guide you, even
had you no other knowledge, you lose yourself!"

"Monseigneur," he whimpered, "I was choosing
my way by the sun and the mountains, and it was
thus that I came to this impasse. For you may see,
yourself, that the road ends here abruptly."

"Ganymede," said I slowly, "when we return to
Paris — if you do not die of fright 'twixt this and then

RENfi DE LESPERON 27

— I'll find a place for you in the kitchens. God send
you may make a better scullion than a follower!"
Then, vaulting over the wall, "Attend me, some half-
dozen of you," I commanded, and stepped out briskly
towards the barn.

As the weather-beaten old door creaked upon its
rusty hinges, we were greeted by a groan from
within, and with it the soft rustle of straw that is
being moved. Surprised, I halted, and waited whilst
one of my men kindled a light in the lanthorn that
he carried.

By its rays we beheld a pitiable sight in a corner of
that building. A man, quite young and of a tall and
vigorous frame, lay stretched upon the straw. He
was fully dressed even to his great riding-boots, and
from the loose manner in which his back-and-breast
hung now upon him, it would seem as if he had been
making shift to divest himself of his armour, but had
lacked the strength to complete the task. Beside him
lay a feathered headpiece and a sword attached to a
richly broidered baldrick. All about him the straw
was clotted with brown, viscous patches of blood. The
doublet which had been of sky-blue velvet was all
sodden and stained, and inspection showed us that
he had been wounded in the right side, between the
straps of his breastplate.

As we stood about him now, a silent, pitying group,
appearing fantastic, perhaps, by the dim light of that
single lanthorn, he attempted to raise his head, and
then with a groan he dropped it back upon the straw
that pillowed it. From out of a face white, as in death,
and drawn with haggard lines of pain, a pair of great
lustrous blue eyes were turned upon us, abject and

28 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

pitiful as the gaze of a dumb beast that is stricken
mortally.

It needed no acuteness to apprehend that we had
before us one of yesterday's defeated warriors; one
who had spent his last strength in creeping hither to
get his dying done in peace. Lest our presence should
add fear to the agony already upon him, I knelt be-
side him in the blood-smeared straw, and, raising his
head, I pillowed it upon my arm.

"Have no fear," said I reassuringly. "We are
friends. Do you understand?"

The faint smile that played for a second on his lips
and lighted his countenance would have told me that
he understood, even had I not caught his words, faint
as a sigh —

"Merci, monsieur." He nestled his head into the
crook of my arm. " Water — for the love of God ! " he
gasped, to add in a groan, " Je me meurs, monsieur."

Assisted by a couple of knaves, Ganymede went
about attending to the rebel at once. Handling him
as carefully as might be, to avoid giving him un-
necessary pain they removed his back-and-breast,
which was flung with a clatter into one of the corners
of the barn. Then, whilst one of them gently drew off
his boots, Rodenard, with the lanthorn close beside
him, cut away the fellow's doublet, and laid bare the
oozing sword-wound that gaped in his mangled side.
He whispered an order to Gilles, who went swiftly off
to the coach in quest of something that he had asked
for; then he sat on his heels and waited, his hand upon
the man's pulse, his eyes on his face.

I stooped until my lips were on a level with my in-
tendant's ear.

REN£ DE LESPERON 29

"How is it with him?" I inquired.

" Dying," whispered Rodenard in answer. "He has
lost too much blood, and he is probably bleeding in-
wardly as well. There is no hope of his life, but he
may linger thus some little while, sinking gradually,
and we can at least mitigate the suffering of his last
moments."

When presently the men returned with the things
that Ganymede had asked for, he mixed some pungent
liquid with water, and, whilst a servant held the bowl,
he carefully sponged the rebel's wound. This and a
cordial that he had given him to drink seemed to re-
vive him and to afford him ease. His breathing was
no longer marked by any rasping sound, and his eyes
seemed to burn more intelligently.

"I am dying — is it not so?" he asked, and Gany-
mede bowed his head in silence. The poor fellow
sighed. " Raise me," he begged, and when this service
had been done him, his eyes wandered round until
they found me. Then —

"Monsieur," he said, "will you do me a last fa-
vour?"

"Assuredly, my poor friend," I answered, going
down on my knees beside him.

" You — you were not for the Duke?" he inquired,
eyeing me more keenly.

"No, monsieur. But do not let that disturb you; I
have no interest in this rising and I have taken no side.
I am from Paris, on a journey of — of pleasure. My
name is Bardelys — Marcel de Bardelys."

"Bardelys the Magnificent?" he questioned, and I
could not repress a smile.

"I am that overrated man."

30 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

"But then you are for the King!" And a note of
disappointment crept into his voice. Before I could
make him any answer, he had resumed. "No matter.
Marcel de Bardelys is a gentleman, and party signifies
little when a man is dying. I am Rene de Lesperon, of
Lesperon in Gascony," he pursued. "Will you send
word to my sister — afterwards?"

I bowed my head without speaking.

"She is the only relative I have, monsieur. But"
- and his tone grew wistful — " there is one other to
whom I would have you bear a message." He raised
his hand by a painful effort to the level of his breast.
Strength failed him, and he sank back. "I cannot,
monsieur," he said in a tone of pathetic apology.
"See; there is a chain about my neck with a locket.
Take it from me. Take it now, monsieur. There are
some papers also, monsieur. Take all. I want to see
them safely in your keeping."

I did his bidding, and from the breast of his doublet
I drew some loose letters and a locket which held the
miniature of a woman's face.

"I want you to deliver all to her, monsieur."

"It shall be done," I answered, deeply moved.

"Hold it — hold it up," he begged, his voice weak-
ening. "Let me behold the face."

Long his eyes rested on the likeness I held before
him. At last, as one in a dream —

"Well-beloved," he sighed. "Bien aimee!" And
down his grey, haggard cheeks the tears came slowly.
"Forgive this weakness, monsieur," he whispered
brokenly. "We were to have been wed in a month
had I lived." He ended with a sob, and when next he
spoke it was more labouredly, as though that sob had

RENE DE LESPERON 31

robbed him of the half of what vitality remained.
"Tell her, monsieur, that my — dying thoughts —
were of her. Tell — tell her — I — "

"Her name?" I cried, fearing he would sink before
I learned it. "Tell me her name."

He looked at me with eyes that were growing glassy
and vacant. Then he seemed to brace himself and to
rally for a second.

"Her name?" he mused, in a far-off manner. "She
is — Ma-de-moiselle de —

His head rolled on the suddenly relaxed neck. He
collapsed into Rodenard's arms.

"Is he dead?" I asked.

Rodenard nodded in silence.

CHAPTER IV

A MAID IN THE MOONLIGHT

I DO not know whether it was the influence of that
thing lying in a corner of the barn under the cloak
that Rodenard had flung over it, or whether other
influences of destiny were at work to impel me to rise
at the end of a half-hour and announce my determina-
tion to set out on horseback and find myself quarters
more congenial.

"To-morrow," I instructed Ganymede, as I stood
ready to mount, "you will retrace your steps with the
others, and, finding the road to Lavedan, you will
follow me to the chateau."

"But you cannot hope to reach it to-night, mon-
seigneur, through a country that is unknown to you,"
he protested.

"I do not hope to reach it to-night. I will ride
south until I come upon some hamlet that will afford
me shelter and, in the morning, direction."

I left him with that, and set out at a brisk trot.
Night had now fallen, but the sky was clear, and a
crescent moon came opportunely if feebly to dispel
the gloom.

I quitted the field, and went back until I gained a
crossroad, where, turning to the right, I set my face to
the Pyrenees, and rode briskly amain. That I had
chosen wisely was proved when some twenty minutes
later I clattered into the hamlet of Mirepoix, and
drew up before an inn flaunting the sign of a peacock

A MAID IN THE MOONLIGHT 33

- as if in irony of its humbleness, for it was no better
than a wayside tavern. Neither stable-boy nor ostler
was there, and the unclean, overgrown urchin to
whom I entrusted my horse could not say whether,
indeed, Pere Abdon, the landlord, would be able to
find me a room to sleep in. I thirsted, however; and
so I determined to alight, if it were only to drink a can
of wine and obtain information of my whereabouts.

As I was entering the hostelry there was a clatter of
hoofs in the street, and four dragoons headed by a
sergeant rode up and halted at the door of the Paon.
They seemed to have ridden hard and some distance,
for their horses were jaded almost to the last point of
endurance.

Within, I called the host, and having obtained a
flagon of the best vintage — Heaven fortify those
that must be content with his worst! — I passed on to
make inquiries touching my whereabouts and the way
to Lavedan. This I learnt was but some three or four
miles distant. About the other table — there were but
two within the room — stood the dragoons in a
whispered consultation, of which it had been well had
I taken heed, for it concerned me more closely than I
could have dreamt.

"He answers the description," said the sergeant,
and though I heard the words I took no thought that
it was of me they spoke.

"Pardieu," swore one of his companions, "I'll
wager it is our man."

And then, just as I was noticing that Master Abdon,
who had also overheard the conversation, was eyeing
me curiously, the sergeant stepped up to me, and —

"What is your name, monsieur?" quoth he.

34 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

I vouchsafed him a stare of surprise before asking
in my turn —

"How may that concern you?"

"Your pardon, my master, but we are on the King's
business."

I remembered then that he had said I answered
some description. With that it flashed through my
mind that they had been sent after me by His Majesty
to enforce my obedience to his wishes and to hinder
me from reaching Lavedan. At once came the domi-
nant desire to conceal my identity that I might go un-
hindered. The first name that occurred to me was
that of the poor wretch I had left in the barn half an
hour ago, and so —

"I am," said I, "Monsieur de Lesperon, at your

service."

Too late I saw the mistake that I had made. I own
it was a blunder that no man of ordinary intelligence
should have permitted himself to have committed.
Remembering the unrest of the province, I should
rather have concluded that their business was more
like to be in that connection.

"He is bold, at least," cried one of the troopers,
with a burst of laughter. Then came the sergeant's
voice, cold and formal —

"In the King's name, Monsieur de Lesperon, I
arrest you."

He had whipped out his sword, and the point was
within an inch of my breast. But his arm, I observed,
was stretched to its fullest extent, which forbade his
making a sudden thrust. To hamper him in the lunge
there was the table between us.

So, my mind working quickly in this desperate

A MAID IN THE MOONLIGHT 35

situation, and realizing how dire and urgent the need
to attempt an escape, I leapt suddenly back to find
myself in the arms of his followers. But in moving I
had caught up by one of its legs the stool on which I
had been sitting. As I raised it, I eluded the pinioning
grip of the troopers. I twisted in their grasp, and
brought the stool down upon the head of one of them
with a force that drove him to his knees. Up went
that three-legged stool again, to descend like a thunder-
bolt upon the head of another. That freed me. The
sergeant was coming up behind, but another flourish
of my improvised battle-axe sent the two remaining
soldiers apart to look to their swords. Ere they could
draw, I had darted like a hare between them and
out into the street. The sergeant, cursing them with
horrid volubility, followed closely upon my heels.

Leaping as far into the roadway as I could, I turned
to meet the fellow's onslaught. Using the stool as a
buckler, I caught his thrust upon it. So violently was
it delivered that the point buried itself in the wood
and the blade snapped, leaving him a hilt and a stump
of steel. I wasted no time in thought. Charging him
wildly, I knocked him over just as the two unhurt
dragoons came stumbling out of the tavern.

I gained my horse, and vaulted into the saddle.
Tearing the reins from the urchin that held them, and
driving my spurs into the beast's flanks, I went career-
ing down the street at a gallop, gripping tightly with
my knees, whilst the stirrups, which I had had no time
to step into, flew wildly about my legs.

A pistol cracked behind me; then another, and a
sharp, stinging pain in the shoulder warned me that I
was hit. But I took no heed of it then. The wound

36 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

could not be serious, else I had already been out of the
saddle, and it would be time enough to look to it
when I had outdistanced my pursuers. I say my
pursuers, for already there were hoofbeats behind me,
and I knew that those gentlemen had taken to their
horses. But, as you may recall, I had on their arrival
noted the jaded condition of their cattle, whilst I be-
strode a horse that was comparatively fresh, so that
pursuit had but small terrors for me. Nevertheless,
they held out longer, and gave me more to do than I
had imagined would be the case. For nigh upon a
half-hour I rode, before I could be said to have got
clear of them, and then for aught I knew they were
still following, resolved to hound me down by the aid
of such information as they might cull upon their way.

I was come by then to the Garonne. I drew rein be-
side the swiftly flowing stream, winding itself like a
flood of glittering silver between the black shadows of
its banks. A little while I sat there listening, and
surveying the stately, turreted chateau that loomed,
a grey, noble pile, beyond the water. I speculated
what demesne this might be, and I realized that it was
probably Lavedan.

I pondered what I had best do, and in the end I
took the resolve to swim the river and knock at the
gates. If it were indeed Lavedan, I had but to an-
nounce myself, and to one of my name surely its
hospitalities would be spread. If it were some other
household, even then the name of Marcel de Bardelys
should suffice to ensure me a welcome.

By spurring and coaxing, I lured my steed into the
river. There is a proverb having it that though you
may lead a horse to the water you cannot make him

A MAID IN THE MOONLIGHT 37

drink. It would have now applied to my case, for al-
though I had brought mine to the water I could not
make him swim; or, at least, I could not make him
breast the rush of the stream. Vainly did I urge him
and try to hold him; he plunged frantically, snorted,
coughed, and struggled gamely, but the current was
bearing us swiftly away, and his efforts brought us no
nearer to the opposite shore. At last I slipped from
his back, and set myself to swim beside him, leading
him by the bridle. But even thus he proved unequal
to the task of resisting the current, so that in the end I
let him go, and swam ashore alone, hoping that he
would land farther down, and that I might then re-
capture him. When, however, I had reached the
opposite bank, and stood under the shadow of the
chateau, I discovered that the cowardly beast had
turned back, and, having scrambled out, was now
trotting away along the path by which we had come.
Having no mind to go after him, I resigned myself to
the loss, and turned my attention to the mansion now
before me.

Some two hundred yards from the river it raised its
great square bulk against the background of black,
star-flecked sky. From the facade before me down to
the spot where I stood by the water, came a flight
of half a dozen terraces, each balustraded in white
marble, ending in square, flat-topped pillars of Floren-
tine design. What moon there was revealed the quaint
architecture of that stately edifice and glittered upon
the mullioned windows. But within nothing stirred;
no yellow glimmer came to clash with the white purity
of the moonlight; no sound of man or beast broke the
stillness of the night, for all that the hour was early.

38 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

The air of the place was as that of some gigantic
sepulchre. A little daunted by this all-enveloping
stillness, I skirted the terraces and approached the
house on the eastern side. Here I found an old-world
drawbridge — now naturally in disuse — spanning a
ditch fed from the main river for the erstwhile pur-
poses of a moat. I crossed the bridge, and entered an
imposing courtyard. Within this quadrangle the same
silence dwelt, and there was the same obscurity in the
windows that overlooked it. I paused, at a loss how to
proceed, and I leaned against a buttress of the port-
cullis, what time I considered.

I was weak from fasting, worn with hard riding, and
faint from the wound in my shoulder, which had been
the cause at least of my losing some blood. In addition
to all this, I was shivering with the cold of my wet
garments, and generally I must have looked as little
like that Bardelys they called the Magnificent as you
might well conceive. How, then, if I were to knock,
should I prevail in persuading these people — who-
ever they might be — of my identity? Infinitely
more had I the air of some fugitive rebel, and it was
more than probable that I should be kept in durance
to be handed over to my friends the dragoons, if later
they came to ride that way. I was separated from
those who knew me, and as things now stood — un-
less this were, indeed, Lavedan — it might be days
before they found me again.

I was beginning to deplore my folly at having cut
myself adrift from my followers in the first place, and
having embroiled myself with the soldiers in the
second; I was beginning to contemplate the wisdom of
seeking some outhouse of this mansion wherein to lie

A MAID IN THE MOONLIGHT 39

until morning, when of a sudden a broad shaft of light,
coming from one of the windows on the first floor, fell
athwart the courtyard. Instinctively I crouched back
into the shadow of my friendly buttress, and looked
up.

That sudden shaft of light resulted from the with-
drawal of the curtains that masked a window. At this
window, which opened outward on to a balcony, I
now beheld — and to me it was as the vision of
Beatrice may have been to Dante — the white figure
of a woman. The moonlight bathed her, as in her
white robe she leaned upon the parapet gazing up-
ward into the empyrean. A sweet, delicate face I saw,
not endowed, perhaps, with that exquisite balance
and proportion of feature wherein they tell us beauty
lies, but blessed with a wondrously dainty beauty all
its own; a beauty, perhaps, as much of expression as
of form; for in that gentle countenance was mirrored
every tender grace of girlhood, all that is fresh and
pure and virginal.

I held my breath, I think, as I stood in ravished
contemplation of that white vision. If this were
Lavedan, and that the cold Roxalanne who had sent
my bold Chatellerault back to Paris empty-handed
then were my task a very welcome one.

How little it had weighed with me that I was come
to Languedoc to woo a woman bearing the name of
Roxalanne de Lavedan, I have already shown. But
here in this same Languedoc I beheld to-night a
woman whom it seemed I might have loved, for not
in ten years — not, indeed, in all my life — had any
face so wrought upon me and called to my nature
with so strong a voice.

40 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

I gazed at that child, and I thought of the women
that I had known — the bold, bedizened beauties of a
Court said to be the first in Europe. And then it came
to me that this was no demoiselle of Lavedan, no
demoiselle at all in fact, for the noblesse of France
owned no such faces. Candour and purity were not to
be looked for in the high-bred countenances of our
great families; they were sometimes found in the faces
of the children of their retainers. Yes; I had it now.
This child was the daughter of some custodian of the
demesne before me.

Suddenly, as she stood there in the moonlight, a
song, sung at half- voice, floated down on the calm air.
It was a ditty of old Provence, a melody I knew and
loved, and if aught had been wanting to heighten the
enchantment that already ravished me, that soft
melodious voice had done it. Singing still, she turned
and reentered the room, leaving wide the windows, so
that faintly, as from a distance, her voice still reached
me after she was gone from sight.

It was in that hour that it came to me to cast my-
self upon this fair creature's mercy. Surely one so
sweet and saintly to behold would take compassion on
an unfortunate! Haply my wound and all the rest
that I had that night endured made me dull-witted
and warped my reason.

With what strength I still possessed I went to work
to scale her balcony. The task was easy even for one
in my spent condition. The wall was thick with ivy,
and, moreover, a window beneath afforded some
support, for by standing on the heavy coping I could
with my fingers touch the sill of the balcony above.
Thus I hoisted myself, and presently I threw an arm

A MAID IN THE MOONLIGHT 41

over the parapet. Already I was astride of that same
parapet before she became aware of my presence.

The song died suddenly on her lips, and her eyes,
blue as forget-me-nots, were wide now with the fear
that the sight of me occasioned. Another second and
there had been an outcry that would have brought the
house about our ears, when, stepping to the threshold
of the room — •

"Mademoiselle," I entreated, "for the love of God,
be silent! I mean you no harm. I am a fugitive. I
am pursued.'*

This was no considered speech. There had been no
preparing of words; I had uttered them mechanically
almost — perhaps by inspiration, for they were surely
the best calculated to enlist this lady's sympathy.
And so far as went the words themselves, they were
rigorously true.

With eyes wide open still, she confronted me, and I
now observed that she was not so tall as from below I
had imagined. She was, in fact, of a short stature
rather, but of proportions so exquisite that she con-
veyed an impression of some height. In her hand she
held a taper by whose light she had been surveying
herself in her mirror at the moment of my advent.
Her unbound hair of brown fell like a mantle about
her shoulders, and this fact it was drew me to notice
that she was in her night-rail, and that this room to
which I had penetrated was her chamber.

"Who are you?" she asked breathlessly, as though
in such a pass my identity were a thing that signified.

I had almost answered her, as I had answered the
troopers at Mirepoix, that I was Lesperon. Then, be-
thinking me that there was no need for such equivo-

42 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

cation here, I was on the point of giving her my name.
But noting my hesitation, and misconstruing it, she
forestalled me.

"I understand, monsieur," said she more com-
posedly. "And you need have no fear. You are among
friends/1

Her eyes had travelled over my sodden clothes, the
haggard pallor of my face, and the blood that stained
my doublet from the shoulder downward. From all
this she had drawn her conclusions that I was a hunted
rebel. She drew me into the room, and, closing the
window, she dragged the heavy curtain across it,
thereby giving me a proof of confidence that smote
me hard — impostor that I was.

"I crave your pardon, mademoiselle, for having
startled you by the rude manner of my coming," said
I, and never in my life had I felt less at ease than then.
" But I was exhausted and desperate. I am wounded,
I have ridden hard, and I swam the river."

The latter piece of information was vastly un-
necessary, seeing that the water from my clothes was
forming a pool about my feet. " I saw you from below,
mademoiselle, and surely, I thought, so sweet a lady
would have pity on an unfortunate." She observed
that my eyes were upon her, and in an act of instinc-
tive maidenliness she bore her hand to her throat to
draw the draperies together and screen the beauties of
her neck from my unwarranted glance, as though her
daily gown did not reveal as much and more of them.

That act, however, served to arouse me to a sense
of my position. What did I there? It was a profanity
- a defiling, I swore; from which you'll see that
Bardelys was grown of a sudden very nice.

A MAID IN THE MOONLIGHT 43

"Monsieur," she was saying, "you are exhausted."

"But that I rode hard," I laughed, "it is likely
they had taken me to Toulouse, where I might have
lost my head before my friends could have found and
claimed me. I hope you'll see it is too comely a head
to be so lightly parted with."

"For that," said she, half seriously, half whimsi-
cally, "the ugliest head would be too comely."

I laughed softly, amusedly; then of a sudden, with-
out warning, a faintness took me, and I was forced to
brace myself against the wall, breathing heavily the
while. At that she gave a little cry of alarm.

"Monsieur, I beseech you to be seated. I will
summon my father, and we will find a bed for you.
You must not retain those clothes."

"Angel of goodness!" I muttered gratefully, and
being still half dazed, I brought some of my Court
tricks into that chamber by taking her hand and
carrying it towards my lips. But ere I had imprinted
the intended kiss upon her fingers — and by some
miracle they were not withdrawn — my eyes en-
countered hers again. I paused as one may pause who
contemplates a sacrilege. For a moment she held my
glance with hers; then I fell abashed, and released her
hand.

The innocence peeping out of that child's eyes it
was that had in that moment daunted me, and made
me tremble to think of being found there, and of the
vile thing it would be to have her name coupled with
mine. That thought lent me strength. I cast my
weariness from me as though it were a garment, and,
straightening myself, I stepped of a sudden to the
window. Without a word, I made shift to draw back

44 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

the curtain, when her hand, falling on my sodden
sleeve, arrested me.

"What will you do, monsieur ?" she cried in alarm.
"You may be seen."

My mind was now possessed by the thing I should
have thought of before I climbed to her balcony, and
my one resolve was to get me thence as quickly as
might be.

" I had not the right to enter here," I muttered. " I
— "I stopped short; to explain would only be to sully,
and so, "Good-night! Adieu!" I ended brusquely.

"But, monsieur — " she began.

"Let me go," I commanded almost roughly, as I
shook my arm free of her grasp.

"Bethink you that you are exhausted. If you go
forth nowr, monsieur, you will assuredly be taken. You
must not go."

I laughed softly, and with some bitterness, too, for I
was angry with myself.

"Hush, child," I said. "Better so, if it is to be."

And with that I drew aside the curtains and pushed
the leaves of the window apart. She remained stand-
Ing in the room, watching me, her face pale, and her
eyes pained and puzzled.

One last glance I gave her as I bestrode the rail of
her balcony. Then I lowered myself as I had ascended.
I was hanging by my hands, seeking with my foot for
the coping of the window beneath me, when, suddenly,
there came a buzzing in my ears. I had a fleeting
vision of a white figure leaning on the balcony above
me; then a veil seemed drawn over my eyes; there
came a sense of falling; a rush as of a tempestuous
wind; then — nothing.

CHAPTER V

THE VICOMTE DE LAVfiDAN

WHEN next I awakened, it was to find myself
abed in an elegant apartment, spacious and
sunlit, that was utterly strange to me. For some
seconds I was content to lie and take no count of my
whereabouts. My eyes travelled idly over the hand-
some furnishings of that choicely appointed chamber,
and rested at last upon the lean, crooked figure of a
man whose back was towards me and who was busy
with some phials at a table not far distant. Then re-
flection awakened also in me, and I set my wits to
work to grapple with my surroundings. I looked
through the open window, but from my position on
the bed no more was visible than the blue sky and a
faint haze of distant hills.

I taxed my memory, and the events of yesternight
recurred to me. I remembered the girl, the balcony,
and my flight ending in my giddiness and my fall. Had
they brought me into that same chateau, or — Or
what ? No other possibility came to suggest itself, and,
seeing scant need to tax my brains with speculation,
since there was one there of whom I might ask the
question —

"Hola, my master!" I called to him, and as I did so
I essayed to move. The act wrung a sharp cry of
pain from me. My left shoulder was numb and sore,
but in my right foot that sudden movement had
aroused a sharper pang.

46 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

At my cry that little wizened old man swung
suddenly round. He had the face of a bird of prey,
yellow as a louis d'or, with a great hooked nose, and a
pair of beady black eyes that observed me solemnly.
The mouth alone was the redeeming feature in a
countenance that had otherwise been evil; it was
instinct with good-humour. But I had small leisure to
observe him then, for simultaneously with his turning
there had been another movement at my bedside
which drew my eyes elsewhere. A gentleman, richly
dressed, and of an imposing height, approached me.

"You are awake, monsieur?" he said in a half
interrogative tone.

"Will you do me the favour to tell me where I am,
monsieur?" quoth I.

"You do not know? You are at Lavedan. I am the
Vicomte de Lavedan — at your service."

Although it was no more than I might have ex-
pected, yet a dull wonder filled me, to which presently
I gave expression by asking stupidly —

"At Lavedan? But how came I hither?"

" How you came is more than I can tell," he laughed.
"But I'll swear the King's dragoons were not far be-
hind you. We found you in the courtyard last night,
in a swoon of exhaustion, wounded in the shoulder,
and with a sprained foot. It was my daughter who
gave the alarm and called us to your assistance. You
were lying under her window." Then, seeing the
growing wonder in my eyes, and misconstruing it into
alarm: "Nay, have no fear, monsieur," he cried. "You
were very well advised in coming to us. You have
fallen among friends. We are Orleanists too, at
Lavedan, for all that I was not in the fight at Castel-

THE VICOMTE DE LAVEDAN 47

naudary. That was no fault of mine. His Grace's
messenger reached me over-late, and for all that I set
out with a company of my men, I put back when I had
reached Lautrec upon hearing that already a decisive
battle had been fought and that our side had suffered
a crushing defeat." He uttered a weary sigh.

"God help us, monsieur! Monseigneur de Richelieu
is likely to have his way with us. But let that be for
the present. You are here, and you are safe. As yet
no suspicion rests on Lavedan. I was, as I have said,
too late for the fight, and so I came quietly back to
save my skin, that I might serve the Cause in what-
ever other way might offer still. In sheltering you I
am serving Gaston d'Orleans, and, that I may con-
tinue so to do, I pray that suspicion may continue to
ignore me. If they were to learn of it at Toulouse —
or of how with money and in other ways I have helped
this rebellion — I make no doubt that my head would
be the forfeit I should be asked to pay."

I was aghast at the freedom of treasonable speech
with which this very debonnaire gentleman ventured
to address an utter stranger.

"But tell me, Monsieur de Lesperon," resumed my
host, "how is it with you?"

I started in fresh astonishment.

" How — how do you know that I am Lesperon ? " I
asked.

"Ma foi!" he laughed, "do you imagine I had
spoken so unreservedly to a man of whom I knew
nothing? Think better of me, monsieur, I beseech
you. I found these letters in your pocket last night,
and their superscription gave me your identity. Your
name is well known to me," he added. "My friend

48 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

Monsieur de Marsac has often spoken of you and of
your devotion to the Cause, and it affords me no little
satisfaction to be of some service to one whom by
repute I have already learned to esteem."

I lay back on my pillows, and I groaned. Here was
a predicament ! Mistaking me for that miserable rebel
I had succoured at Mirepoix, and whose letters I bore
upon me that I might restore them to some one whose
name he had failed to give me at the last moment, the
Vicomte de Lavedan had poured the damning story of
his treason into my ears.

What if I were now to enlighten him ? What if I were
to tell him that I was not Lesperon — no rebel at
all, in fact — but Marcel de Bardelys, the King's fa-
vourite? That he would account me a spy I hardly
thought; but assuredly he would see that my life must
be a danger to his own; he must fear betrayal from me,
and to protect himself he would be justified in taking
extreme measures. Rebels were not addicted to an
excess of niceness in their methods, and it was more
likely that I should rise no more from the luxurious
bed on which his hospitality had laid me. But even if
I had exaggerated matters, and the Vicomte were not
quite so bloodthirsty as was usual with his order, even
if he chose to accept my promise that I would forget
what he had said, he must nevertheless — in view of
his indiscretion — demand my instant withdrawal
from Lavedan. And what, then, of my wager with
Chatellerault?

Then, in thinking of my wager, I came to think of
Roxalanne herself — that dainty, sweet-faced child
into whose chamber I had penetrated on the previous
night. And would you believe it that I — the satiated,

THE VICOMTE DE LAVEDAN 49

cynical, unbelieving Bardelys — experienced dismay
at the very thought of leaving Lavedan for no other
reason than because it involved seeing no more of
that provincial damsel?

My unwillingness to be driven from her presence
determined me to stay. I had come to Lavedan as
Lesperon, a fugitive rebel. In that character I had all
but announced myself last night to Mademoiselle. In
that character I had been welcomed by her father. In
that character, then, I must remain, that I might be
near her, that I might woo and win her, and thus —
though this, I swear, had now become a minor con-
sideration with me — make good my boast and win
the wager that must otherwise involve my ruin.

As I lay back with closed eyes and gave myself over
to pondering the situation, I took a pleasure oddly
sweet in the prospect of urging my suit under such
circumstances. Chatellerault had given me a free
hand. I was to go about the wooing of Mademoiselle
de Lavedan as I chose. But he had cast it at me in de-
fiance that not with all my magnificence, not with all
my retinue and all my state to dazzle her, should I
succeed in melting the coldest heart in France.

And now, behold! I had cast from me all these out-
ward embellishments; I came without pomp, denuded
of every emblem of wealth, of every sign of power; as
a poor fugitive gentleman, I came, hunted, proscribed,
and penniless — for Lesperon 's estate would assuredly
suffer sequestration. To win her thus would, by my
faith, be an exploit I might take pride in, a worthy
achievement to encompass.

And so I left things as they were, and since I offered
no denial to the identity that was thrust upon me, as

50 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

Lesperon I continued to be known to the Vicomte and
to his family.

Presently he called the old man to my bedside and I
heard them talking of my condition.

"You think, then, Anatole," he said in the end,
"that in three or four days Monsieur de Lesperon
may be able to rise?"

"I am assured of it," replied the old servant.

Whereupon, turning to me, "Be therefore of good
courage, monsieur," said Lavedan, "for your hurt is
none so grievous after all."

I was muttering my thanks and my assurances that
I was in excellent spirits, when we were suddenly dis-
turbed by a rumbling noise as of distant thunder.

"Mort Dieu!" swore the Vicomte, a look of alarm
coming into his face. With a bent head, he stood, in a
listening attitude.

"What is it?" I inquired.

"Horsemen — on the drawbridge," he answered
shortly. "A troop, by the sound."

And then, in confirmation of these words, followed
a stamping and rattle of hoofs on the flags of the
courtyard below. The old servant stood wringing
his hands in helpless terror, and wailing, "Monsieur,
monsieur!"

But the Vicomte crossed rapidly to the window and
looked out. Then he laughed with intense relief; and
in a wondering voice —

"They are not troopers," he announced. "They
have more the air of a company of servants in pri-
vate livery; and there is a carriage — pardieu, two
carriages!"

At once the memory of Rodenard and my followers

THE VICOMTE DE LAVED AN 51

occurred to me, and I thanked Heaven that I was abed
where he might not see me, and that thus he would
probably be sent forth empty-handed with the news
that his master was neither arrived nor expected.

But in that surmise I went too fast. Ganymede
was of a tenacious mettle, and of this he now afforded
proof. Upon learning that naught was known of the
Marquis de Bardelys at Lavedan, my faithful hench-
man announced his intention to remain there and
await me, since that was, he assured the Vicomte, my
destination.

"My first impulse," said Lavedan, when later he
came to tell me of it, "was incontinently to order his
departure. But upon considering the matter and re-
membering how high in power and in the King's fa-
vour stands that monstrous libertine Bardelys, I
deemed it wiser to afford shelter to this outrageous
retinue. His steward — a flabby, insolent creature —
says that Bardelys left them last night near Mirepoix,
to ride hither, bidding them follow to-day. Curious
that we should have no news of him ! That he should
have fallen into the Garonne and drowned himself
were too great a good fortune to be hoped for."

The bitterness with which he spoke of me afforded
me ample cause for congratulation that I had resolved
to accept the role of Lesperon. Yet, remembering
that my father and he had been good friends, his
manner left me nonplussed. What cause could he have
for this animosity to the son? Could it be merely my
position at Court that made me seem in his rebel eyes
a natural enemy?

"You are acquainted with this Bardelys?" I in-
quired, by way of drawing him.

52 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

"I knew his father," he answered gruffly. "An
honest, upright gentleman."

"And the son," I inquired timidly, "has he none of
these virtues?"

"I know not what virtues he may have; his vices
are known to all the world. He is a libertine, a gambler,
a rake, a spendthrift. They say he is one of the King's
favourites, and that his monstrous extravagances have
earned for him the title of * Magnificent.' " He uttered
a short laugh. "A fit servant for such a master as
Louis the Just!"

" Monsieur le Vicomte," said I, warming in my own
defence, " I swear you do him injustice. He is extrava-
gant, but then he is rich; he is a libertine, but then he
is young, and he has been reared among libertines; he
is a gamester, but punctiliously honourable at play.
Believe me, monsieur, I have some acquaintance with
Marcel de Bardelys, and his vices are hardly so black
as is generally believed; whilst in his favour I think
the same may be said that you have just said of his
father — he is an honest, upright gentleman."

"And that disgraceful affair with the Duchesse de
Bourgogne?" inquired Lavedan, with the air of a man
setting an unanswerable question.

"Mon Dieu!" I cried, "will the world never forget
that indiscretion? An indiscretion of youth, no doubt
much exaggerated outside Court circles."

The Vicomte eyed me in some astonishment for a
moment.

"Monsieur de Lesperon," he said at length, "you
appear to hold this Bardelys in high esteem. He has a
staunch supporter in you and a stout advocate. Yet
me you cannot convince." And he shook his head

THE VICOMTE DE LAVEDAN 53

solemnly. " Even if I did not hold him to be such a
man as I have pronounced him, but were to account
him a paragon of all the virtues, his coming hither re-
mains an act that I must resent."

"But why, Monsieur le Vicomte?"

"Because I know the errand that brings him to
Lavedan. He comes to woo my daughter."

Had he flung a bomb into my bed, he could not
more effectively have startled me.

"It astonishes you, eh?" he laughed bitterly. "But
I can assure you that it is so. A month ago I was
visited by the Comte de Chatellerault — another of
His Majesty's fine favourites. He came unbidden;
offered no reason for his coming, save that he was
making a tour of the province for his amusement. His
acquaintance with me was of the slightest, and I had
no desire that it should increase; yet here he installed
himself with a couple of servants, and bade fair to
make a long stay.

"I was surprised, but on the morrow I had an
explanation. A courier, arriving from an old friend of
mine at Court, bore me a letter with the information
that Monsieur de Chatellerault was come to Lavedan
at the King's instigation to sue for my daughter's hand
in marriage. The reasons were not far to seek. The
King, who loves him, would enrich him; the easiest
way is by a wealthy alliance, and Roxalanne is
accounted an heiress. In addition to that, my own
power in the province is known, whilst my defec-
tion from the Cardinalist party is feared. What bet-
ter link wherewith to attach me again to the for-
tunes of the Crown — for Crown and Mitre have
grown to be synonymous in this topsy-turvy France

54 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

- than to wed my daughter to one of the King's
favourites?

"But for that timely warning, God knows what
mischief had been wrought. As it was, Monsieur de
Chatellerault had but seen my daughter upon two
occasions. On the very day that I received the tidings
I speak of, I sent her to Auch to the care of some
relatives of her mother's. Chatellerault remained a
week. Then, growing restive, he asked when my
daughter would return. ' When you depart, monsieur/
I answered him, and, being pressed for reasons, I dealt
so frankly with him that within twenty-four hours he
was on his way back to Paris."

The Vicomte paused and took a turn in the apart-
ment, whilst I pondered his words, which were bring-
ing me a curious revelation. Presently he resumed.

"And now, Chatellerault having failed in his pur-
pose, the King chooses a more dangerous person for
the gratifying of his desires. He sends the Marquis
Marcel de Bardelys to Lavedan on the same business.
No doubt he attributes Chatellerault's failure to
clumsiness, and he has decided this time to choose a
man famed for courtly address and gifted with such
arts of dalliance that he cannot fail but enmesh my
daughter in them. It is a great compliment that he
pays us in sending hither the handsomest and most
accomplished gentleman of all his Court — so fame
has it — yet it is a compliment of whose flattery I am
not sensible. Bardelys goes hence as empty-handed as
went Chatellerault. Let him but show his face, and
my daughter journeys to Auch again. Am I not well
advised, Monsieur de Lesperon?"

"Why, yes," I answered slowly, after the manner

THE VICOMTE DE LAVEDAN 55

of one who deliberates, "if you are persuaded that
your conclusions touching Bardelys are correct."

"I am more than persuaded. What other business
could bring him to Lavedan?"

It was a question that I did not attempt to answer.
Haply he did not expect me to answer it. He left me
free to ponder another issue of this same business of
which my mind was become very full. Chatellerault
had not dealt fairly with me. Often, since I had left
Paris, had I marvelled that he came to be so rash as to
risk his fortune upon a matter that turned upon a
woman's whim. That I possessed undeniable ad-
vantages of person, of birth, and of wealth, Chatelle-
rault could not have disregarded. Yet these, and the
possibility that they might suffice to engage this
lady's affections, he appeared to have sst at naught
when he plunged into that rash wager.

He must have realized that because he had failed
was no reason to presume that I must also fail. There
was no consequence in such an argument, and often,
as I have said, had I marvelled during the past days
at the readiness with which Chatellerault had flung
down the gage. Now I held the explanation of it. He
counted upon the Vicomte de Lavedan to reason
precisely as he was reasoning, and he was confident
that no opportunities would be afforded me of so much
as seeing this beautiful and cold Roxalanne.

It was a wily trap he had set me, worthy only of a
trickster.

Fate, however, had taken a hand in the game, and
the cards were redealt since I had left Paris. The
terms of the wager permitted me to choose any line of
action that I considered desirable; but Destiny, it

56 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

seemed, had chosen for me, and set me in a line that
should at least suffice to overcome the parental re-
sistance — that breastwork upon which Chatellerault
had so confidently depended.

As the rebel Rene de Lesperon I was sheltered at
Lavedan and made welcome by my fellow-rebel the
Vicomte, who already seemed much taken with me,
and who had esteemed me before seeing me from the
much that Monsieur de Marsac — whoever he might
be — had told him of me. As Rene de Lesperon I
must remain, and turn to best account my sojourn,
praying God meanwhile that this same Monsieur de
Marsac might be pleased to refrain from visiting
Lavedan whilst I was there.

CHAPTER VI
IN CONVALESCENCE

OF the week that followed my coming to Lave-
dan I find some difficulty in writing. It was for
me a time very crowded with events — events that
appeared to be moulding my character anew and
making of me a person different, indeed, from that
Marcel de Bardelys whom in Paris they called the
Magnificent. Yet these events, although significant in
their total, were of so vague and slight a nature in
their detail, that when I come to write of them I find
really little that I may set down.

Rodenard and his companions remained for two
days at the chateau, and to me his sojourn there was a
source of perpetual anxiety, for I knew not how far the
fool might see fit to prolong it. It was well for me that
this anxiety of mine was shared by Monsieur de
Lavedan, who disliked at such a time the presence of
men attached to one who was so notoriously of the
King's party. He came at last to consult me as to
what measures might be taken to remove them, and I
— nothing loath to conspire with him to so desirable
an end — bade him suggest to Rodenard that perhaps
evil had befallen Monsieur de Bardelys, and that, in-
stead of wasting his time at Lavedan, he were better
advised to be searching the province for his master.

This counsel the Vicomte adopted, and with such
excellent results that that very day — within the
hour, in fact — Ganymede, aroused to a sense of his

58 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

proper duty, set out in quest of me, not a little dis-
turbed in mind — for with all his shortcomings the
rascal loved me very faithfully.

That was on the third day of my sojourn at Lavedan.
On the morrow I rose, my foot being sufficiently re-
covered to permit it. I felt a little weak from loss
of blood, but Anatole — who, for all his evil counte-
nance, was a kindly and gentle servant — was confi-
dent that a few days — a week at most — would see
me completely restored.

Of leaving Lavedan I said nothing. But the Vi-
comte, who was one of the most generous and noble-
hearted men that it has ever been my good fortune to
meet, forestalled any mention of my departure by
urging that I should remain at the chateau until my
recovery were completed, and, for that matter, as long
thereafter as should suit my inclinations.

"At Lavedan you will be safe, my friend," he
assured me; " for, as I have told you, we are under no
suspicion. Let me urge you to remain until the King
shall have desisted from further persecuting us."

And when I protested and spoke of trespassing, he
waived the point with a brusqueness that amounted
almost to anger.

" Believe, monsieur, that I am pleased and honoured
at serving one who has so stoutly served the Cause and
sacrificed so much to it."

At that, being not altogether dead to shame, I
winced, and told myself that my behaviour was un-
worthy, and that I was practising a detestable de-
ception. Yet some indulgence I may justly claim in
consideration of how far I was victim of circumstance.
Did I tell him that I was Bardelys, I was convinced

IN CONVALESCENCE 59

that I should never leave the chateau alive. Very
noble-hearted was the Vicomte, and no man have I
known more averse to bloodthirstiness, but he had
told me much during the days that I had lain abed,
and many lives would be jeopardized did I proclaim
what I had learned from him. Hence I argued that
any disclosure of my identity must perforce drive him
to extreme measures for the sake of the friends he had
unwittingly betrayed.

On the day after Rodenard's departure I dined with
the family, and met again Mademoiselle de Lavedan,
whom I had not seen since the balcony adventure of
some nights ago. The Vicomtesse was also present, a
lady of very austere and noble appearance — lean as
a pike and with a most formidable nose — but, as I
was soon to discover, with a mind inclining overmuch
to scandal and the high-seasoned talk of the Courts in
which her girlhood had been spent.

From her lips I heard that day the old, scandalous
story of Monseigneur de Richelieu's early passion for
Anne of Austria. With much unction did she tell us
how the Queen had lured His Eminence to dress him-
self in the motley of a jester that she might make a
mock of him in the eyes of the courtiers she had con-
cealed behind the arras of her chamber.

This anecdote she gave us with much wealth of dis-
creditable detail and scant regard for either her
daughter's presence or for the blushes that suffused
the poor child's cheeks. In every way she was a
pattern of the class of women amongst whom my
youth had been spent, a class which had done so much
towards shattering my faith and lowering my estimate
of her sex. Lavedan had married her and brought her

60 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

into Languedoc, and here she spent her years lament-
ing the scenes of her youth, and prone, it would seem,
to make them matter for conversation whenever a
newcomer chanced to present himself at the chateau.

Looking from her to her daughter, I thanked
Heaven that Roxalanne was no reproduction of the
mother. She had inherited as little of her character as
of her appearance. Both in feature and in soul Made-
moiselle de Lavedan was a copy of that noble, gallant
gentleman, her father.

One other was present at that meal, of whom I shall
have more to say hereafter. This was a young man of
good presence, save, perhaps, a too obtrusive foppish-
ness, whom Monsieur de Lavedan presented to me as
a distant kinsman of theirs, one Chevalier de Saint-
Eustache. He was very tall — of fully my own height
— and of an excellent shape, although extremely
young. But his head if anything was too small for his
body, and his good-natured mouth was of a weakness
that was confirmed by the significance of his chin,
whilst his eyes were too closely set to augur frankness.

He was a pleasant fellow, seemingly of that negative
pleasantness that lies in inoffensiveness, but other-
wise dull and of an untutored mind — rustic, as might
be expected in one the greater part of whose life had
been spent in his native province, and of a rusticity
rendered all the more flagrant by the very efforts he
exerted to dissemble it.

It was after madame had related that unsavoury
anecdote touching the Cardinal that he turned to ask
me whether I was well acquainted with the Court. I
was near to committing the egregious blunder of
laughing in his face; but, recollecting myself betimes,

IN CONVALESCENCE 61

I answered vaguely that I had some knowledge of it,
whereupon he all but caused me to bound from my
chair by asking me had I ever met the Magnificent
Bardelys.

"I — I am acquainted with him," I answered
warily. "Why do you ask?"

" I was reminded of him by the fact that his servants
have been here for two days. You were expecting the
Marquis himself, were you not, Monsieur le Vicomte ? "

Lavedan raised his head suddenly, after the manner
of a man who has received an affront.

" I was not, Chevalier," he answered, with emphasis.
"His intendant, an insolent knave of the name of
Rodenard, informed me that this Bardelys projected
visiting me. He has not come, and I devoutly hope
that he may not come. Trouble enough had I to rid
myself of his servants, and but for Monsieur de
Lesperon's well-conceived suggestion they might still
be here."

"You have never met him, monsieur?" inquired
the Chevalier.

"Never," replied our host in such a way that any
but a fool must have understood that he desired
nothing less than such a meeting.

"A delightful fellow," murmured Saint-Eustache
— "a brilliant, dazzling personality."

"You — you are acquainted with him?" I asked.

"Acquainted?" echoed that boastful liar. "We
were as brothers."

"How you interest me! And why have you never
told us?" quoth madame, her eyes turned enviously
upon the young man — as enviously as were Lavedan's
turned in disgust. " It is a thousand pities that Mon-

62 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

sieur de Bardelys has altered his plans and is no
longer coming to us. To meet such a man is to breathe
again the air of the grand monde. You remember,
Monsieur de Lesperon, that affair with the Duchesse
de Bourgogne?" And she smiled wickedly in my
direction.

"I have some recollection of it," I answered coldly.
"But I think that rumour exaggerates. When
tongues wag, a little rivulet is often described as a
mountain torrent."

"You would not say so did you but know what I
know," she informed me roguishly. "Often, I confess,
rumour may swell the importance of such an affaire,
but in this case I do not think that rumour does it
justice."

I made a deprecatory gesture, and I would have had
the subject changed, but ere I could make an effort
to that end, the fool Saint-Eustache was babbling
again.

" You remember the duel that was fought in conse-
quence, Monsieur de Lesperon?"

"Yes," I assented wearily.

"And in which a poor young fellow lost his life,"
growled the Vicomte. " It was practically a murder."

"Nay, monsieur," I cried, with a sudden heat that
set them staring at me; "there you do him wrong.
Monsieur de Bardelys was opposed to the best blade
in France. The man's reputation as a swordsman was
of such a quality that for a twelvemonth he had been
living upon it, doing all manner of unseemly things
immune from punishment by the fear in which he was
universally held. His behaviour in the unfortunate
affair we are discussing was of a particularly shameful

IN CONVALESCENCE 63

character. Oh, I know the details, messieurs, I can
assure you. He thought to impose his reputation upon
Bardelys as he had imposed it upon a hundred others,
but Bardelys was over-tough for his teeth. He sent
that notorious young gentleman a challenge, and on
the following morning he left him dead in the horse-
market behind the Hotel Vendome. But far from a
murder, monsieur, it was an act of justice, and the
most richly earned punishment with which ever man
was visited."

"Even if so," cried the Vicomte in some surprise,
"why all this heat to defend a brawler?"

"A brawler? "I repeated after him. "Oh, no. That
is a charge his worst enemies cannot make against
Bardelys. He is no brawler. The duel in question was
his first affair of the kind, and it has been his last, for
unto him has clung the reputation that had belonged
until then to La Vertoile, and there is none in France
bold enough to send a challenge to him." And, seeing
what surprise I was provoking, I thought it well to in-
volve another with me in his defence. So, turning to
the Chevalier, " I am sure," said I, " that Monsieur de
Saint-Eustache will confirm my words."

Thereupon, his vanity being all aroused, the Cheva-
lier set himself to paraphrase all that I had said with
a heat that cast mine into a miserable insignificance.

"At least," laughed the Vicomte at length, "he
lacks not for champions. For my own part, I am
content to pray Heaven that he come not to Lave-
dan, as he intended."

"Mais voyons, Gaston," the Vicomtesse protested,
"why harbour prejudice? Wait at least until you have
seen him, that you may judge him for yourself."

64 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

"Already have I judged him; I pray that I may
never see him."

"They tell me he is a very handsome man/' said
she, appealing to me for confirmation.

Lavedan shot her a sudden glance of alarm, at
which I could have laughed. Hitherto his sole concern
had been his daughter, but it suddenly occurred to
him that perhaps not even her years might set the
Vicomtesse in safety from imprudences with this de-
vourer of hearts, should he still chance to come that
way.

"Madame," I answered, "he is accounted not ill-
favoured." And with a deprecatory smile I added, " I
am said somewhat to resemble him."

" Say you so ? " she exclaimed, raising her eyebrows,
and looking at me more closely than hitherto. And
then it seemed to me that into her face crept a shade
of disappointment. If this Bardelys were not more
beautiful than I, then he was not nearly so beautiful
a man as she had imagined. She turned to Saint-
Eustache.

"It is indeed so, Chevalier?" she inquired. "Do
you note the resemblance?"

" Vanitas, vanitate," murmured the youth, who had
some scraps of Latin and a taste for airing them. " I
can see no likeness — • no trace of one. Monsieur de
Lesperon is well enough, I should say. But Bardelys ! "
He cast his eyes to the ceiling. "There is but one
Bardelys in France."

" Enfin," I laughed, " you are no doubt well qualified
to judge, Chevalier. I had flattered myself that some
likeness did exist, but probably you have seen the
Marquis more frequently than have I, and probably

IN CONVALESCENCE 65

you know him better. Nevertheless, should he come
this way, I will ask you to look at us side by side and
be the judge of the resemblance."

"Should I happen to be here," he said, with a
sudden constraint not difficult to understand, "I
shall be happy to act as arbiter."

"Should you happen to be here?" I echoed
questioningly. "But surely, should you hear that
Monsieur de Bardelys is about to arrive, you will post-
pone any departure you may be on the point of mak-
ing, so that you may renew this great friendship that
you tell us you do the Marquis the honour of enter-
taining for him?"

The Chevalier eyed me with the air of a man looking
down from a great height upon another. The Vicomte
smiled quietly to himself as he combed his fair beard
with his forefinger in a meditative fashion, whilst even
Roxalanne — who had sat silently listening to a
conversation that she was at times mercifully spared
from following too minutely — flashed me a humor-
ous glance. To the Vicomtesse alone — who in
common with women of her type was of a singular
obtuseness — was the situation without significance.

Saint-Eustache, to defend himself against my del-
icate imputation, and to show how well acquainted
he was with Bardelys, plunged at once into a thousand
details of that gentleman's magnificence. He de-
scribed his suppers, his retinue, his equipages, his
houses, his chateaux, his favour with the King, his
successes with the fair sex, and I know not what be-
sides — in all of which I confess that even to me there
was a certain degree of novelty. Roxalanne listened
with an air of amusement that showed how well she

66 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

read him. Later, when I found myself alone with her
by the river, whither we had gone after the repast and
the Chevalier's reminiscences were at an end, she
reverted to that conversation.

"Is not my cousin a great fanfarron, monsieur?"
she asked.

"Surely you know your cousin better than do I,"
I answered cautiously. "Why question me upon his
character?"

"I was hardly questioning; I was commenting. He
spent a fortnight in Paris once, and he accounts him-
self, or would have us account him, intimate with
every courtier at the Luxembourg. Oh, he is very
amusing, this good cousin, but tiresome too." She
laughed, and there was the faintest note of scorn in
her amusement. "Now, touching this Marquis de
Bardelys, it is very plain that the Chevalier boasted
when he said that they were as brothers — he and the
Marquis — is it not? He grew ill at ease when you re-
minded him of the possibility of the Marquis's visit to
Lavedan." And she laughed quaintly to herself. " Do
you think that he so much as knows Bardelys?" she
asked me suddenly.

"Not so much as by sight," I answered. "He is full
of information concerning that unworthy gentleman,
but it is only information that the meanest scullion in
Paris might afford you, and just as inaccurate."

"Why do you speak of him as unworthy? Are you
of the same opinion as my father?"

"Aye, and with better cause."

"You know him well?"

"Know him? Pardieu, he is my worst enemy. A
worn-out libertine; a sneering, cynical misogynist; a

IN CONVALESCENCE 67

nauseated reveller; a hateful egotist. There is no
more unworthy person, I'll swear, in all France.
Peste ! The very memory of the fellow makes me sick.
Let us talk of other things."

But although I urged it with the best will and the
best intentions in the world, I was not to have my
way. The air became suddenly heavy with the scent
of musk, and the Chevalier de Saint-Eustache stood
before us, and forced the conversation once more upon
the odious topic of Monsieur de Bardelys.

The poor fool came with a plan of campaign care-
fully considered, bent now upon overthrowing me
with the knowledge he would exhibit, and whereby
he looked to encompass my humiliation before his
cousin.

"Speaking of Bardelys, Monsieur de Lesperon — "

" My dear Chevalier, we were no longer speaking of
him."

He smiled darkly. "Let us speak of him, then."

"But are there not a thousand more interesting
things that we might speak of?"

This he took for a fresh sign of fear, and so he
pressed what he accounted his advantage.

"Yet have patience; there is a point on which per-
haps you can give me some information."

"Impossible," said I.

"Are you acquainted with the Duchesse de Bour-
gogne?"

"I was," I answered casually, and as casually I
added, "Are you?"

"Excellently well," he replied unhesitatingly. "I
was in Paris at the time of the scandal with Bardelys."

I looked up quickly.

68 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

"Was it then that you met her?" I inquired in an
idle sort of way.

"Yes. I was in the confidence of Bardelys, and one
night after we had supped at his hotel — one of those
suppers graced by every wit in Paris — he asked me
if I were minded to accompany him to the Louvre.
We went. A masque was in progress."

"Ah," said I, after the manner of one who suddenly
takes in the entire situation; "and it was at this
masque that you met the Duchesse?"

"You have guessed it. Ah, monsieur, if I were to
tell you of the things that I witnessed that night, they
would amaze you," said he, with a great air and a
casual glance at Mademoiselle to see into what depths
of wonder these glimpses into his wicked past were
plunging her.

"I doubt it not," said I, thinking that if his imagi-
nation were as fertile in that connection as it had been
in mine he was likely, indeed, to have some amazing
things to tell. "But do I understand you to say that
that was the time of the scandal you have touched
upon?"

"The scandal burst three days after that masque.
It came as a surprise to most people. As for me —
from what Bardelys had told me — I expected
nothing less."

"Pardon, Chevalier, but how old do you happen to
be?"

"A curious question that," said he, knitting his
brows.

"Perhaps. But will you not answer it?"

"I am twenty-one," said he. "What of it?"

"You are twenty, mon cousin," Roxalanne cor-
rected him.

IN CONVALESCENCE 69

He looked at her a second with an injured air.

"Why, true — twenty! That is so/' he acquiesced;
and again, "what of it?" he demanded.

"What of it, monsieur?" I echoed. "Will you for-
give me if I express amazement at your precocity, and
congratulate you upon it?"

His brows went if possible closer together and his
face grew very red. He knew that somewhere a pitfall
awaited him, yet hardly where.

"I do not understand you."

"Bethink you, Chevalier. Ten years have flown
since this scandal you refer to. So that at the time of
your supping with Bardelys and the wits of Paris, at
the time of his making a confidant of you and carry-
ing you off to a masque at the Louvre, at the time of
his presenting you to the Duchesse de Bourgogne, you
were just ten years of age. I never had cause to think
over-well of Bardelys, but had you not told me your-
self, I should have hesitated to believe him so vile a
despoiler of innocence, such a perverter of youth."

He crimsoned to the very roots of his hair.

Roxalanne broke into a laugh. "My cousin, my
cousin," she cried, "they that would become masters
should begin early, is it not so?"

"Monsieur de Lesperon," said he, in a very formal
voice, "do you wish me to apprehend that you have
put me through this catechism for the purpose of
casting a doubt upon what I have said?"

"But have I done that? Have I cast a doubt?" I
asked, with the utmost meekness.

"So I apprehend."

"Then you apprehend amiss. Your words, I assure
you, admit of no doubt whatever. And now, monsieur,

70 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

if you will have mercy upon me, we will talk of other
things. I am so weary of this unfortunate Bardelys
and his affairs. He may be the fashion of Paris and at
Court, but down here his very name befouls the air.
Mademoiselle," I said, turning to Roxalanne, "you
promised me a lesson in the lore of flowers."

"Come, then," said she, and, being an exceedingly
wise child, she plunged straightway into the history of
the shrubs about us.

Thus did we avert a storm that for a moment was
very imminent. Yet some mischief was done, and
some good, too, perhaps. For if I made an enemy of
the Chevalier de Saint-Eustache by humbling him in
the eyes of the one woman before whom he sought to
shine, I established a bond 'twixt Roxalanne and my-
self by that same humiliation of a foolish coxcomb
whose boastfulness had long wearied her.

CHAPTER VII

THE HOSTILITY OF SAINT-EUSTACHE

IN the days that followed I saw much of the Cheva-
lier de Saint-Eustache. He was a very constant
visitor at Lavedan, and the reason of it was not far to
seek. For my own part, I disliked him — I had done
so from the moment when first I had set eyes on him
— and since hatred, like affection, is often a matter of
reciprocity, the Chevalier was not slow to return my
dislike. Oar manner gradually, by almost impercep-
tible stages, grew more distant, until by the end of a
week it had become so hostile that Lavedan found
occasion to comment upon it.

" Beware of Saint-Eustache," he warned me. " You
are becoming very manifestly distasteful to each
other, and I would urge you to have a care. I don't
trust him. His attachment to our Cause is of a luke-
warm character, and he gives me uneasiness, for he
may do much harm if he is so inclined. It is on this
account that I tolerate his presence at Lavedan.
Frankly, I fear him, and I would counsel you to do no
less. The man is a liar, even if but a boastful liar —
and liars are never long out of mischief."

The wisdom of the words was unquestionable, but
the advice in them was not easily followed, particularly
by one whose position was so peculiar as my own. In
a way I had little cause to fear the harm the Chevalier
might do me, but I was impelled to consider the harm
that at the same time he might do the Vicomte.

72 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

Despite our growing enmity, the Chevalier and I
were very frequently thrown together. The reason
for this was, of course, that wherever Roxalanne was
to be found there, generally, were we both to be found
also. Yet had I advantages that must have gone to
swell a rancour based as much upon jealousy as any
other sentiment, for whilst he was but a daily visitor
at Lavedan, I was established there indefinitely.

Of the use that I made of that time I find it difficult
to speak. From the first moment that I had beheld
Roxalanne I had realized the truth of Chatellerault's
assertion that I had never known a woman. He was
right. Those that I had met and by whom I had
judged the sex had, by contrast with this child, little
claim to the title. Virtue I had accounted a shadow
without substance; innocence, a synonym for igno-
rance; love, a fable, a fairy tale for the delectation of
overgrown children.

In the company of Roxalanne de Lavedan all those
old, cynical beliefs, built up upon a youth of un-
desirable experiences, were shattered and the error of
them exposed. Swiftly was I becoming a convert to
the faith which so long I had sneered at, and as love-
sick as any unfledged youth in his first amour.

Dame! It was something for a man who had lived
as I had lived to have his pulses quicken and his
colour change at a maid's approach; to find himself
colouring under her smile and paling under her dis-
dain; to have his mind running on rhymes, and his
soul so enslaved that, if she is not to be won, chagrin
will dislodge it from his body.

Here was a fine mood for a man who had entered
upon his business by pledging himself to win and wed

THE HOSTILITY OF SAINT-EUSTACHE 73

this girl in cold and supreme indifference to her
personality. And that pledge, how I cursed it during
those days at Lavedan ! How I cursed Chatellerault,
cunning, subtle trickster that he was! How I cursed
myself for my lack of chivalry and honour in having
been lured so easily into so damnable a business! For
when the memory of that wager rose before me it
brought despair in its train. Had I found Roxalanne
the sort of woman that I had looked to find — the
only sort that I had ever known — then matters had
been easy. I had set myself in cold blood, and by
such wiles as I knew, to win such affection as might be
hers to bestow; and I would have married her in much
the same spirit as a man performs any other of the
necessary acts of his lifetime and station. I would
have told her that I was Bardelys, and to the woman
that I had expected to find there had been no difficulty
in making the confession. But to Roxalanne! Had
there been no wager, I might have confessed my
identity. As it was, I found it impossible to avow the
one without the other. For the sweet innocence that
invested her gentle, trusting soul must have given
pause to any but the most abandoned of men before
committing a vileness in connection with her.

We were much together during that week, and just
as day by day, hour by hour, my passion grew and
grew until it absorbed me utterly, so, too, did it seem
to me that it awakened in her a responsive note. There
was an odd light at times in her soft eyes; I came upon
her more than once with snatches of love-songs on her
lips, and when she smiled upon me there was a sweet
tenderness in her smile, which, had things been
different, would have gladdened my soul beyond all

74 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

else; but which, things being as they were, was rather
wont to heighten my despair. I was no coxcomb; I
had had experiences, and I knew these signs. But
something, too, I guessed of the heart of such a one as
Roxalanne. To the full I realized the pain and shame
I should inflict upon her when my confession came; I
realized, too, how the love of this dear child, so honour-
able and high of mind, must turn to contempt and
scorn when I plucked away my mask, and let her see
how poor a countenance I wore beneath.

And yet I drifted with the tide of things. It was my
habit so to drift, and the habit of a lifetime is not to be
set at naught in a day by a resolve, however firm. A
score of times was I reminded that an evil is but in-
creased by being ignored. A score of times confession
trembled on my lips, and I burned to tell her every-
thing from its inception — the environment that had
•erstwhile warped me, the honesty by which I was now
inspired — and so cast myself upon the mercy of her
belief.

She might accept my story, and, attaching credit
to it, forgive me the deception I had practised, and
recognize the great truth that must ring out in the
avowal of my love. But, on the other hand, she might
not accept it; she might deem my confession a shrewd
part of my scheme, and the dread of that kept me
silent day by day.

Fully did I see how with every hour that sped con-
fession became more and more difficult. The sooner
the thing were done, the greater the likelihood of my
being believed; the later I left it, the more probable
was it that I should be discredited. Alas! Bardelys,
it seemed, had added cowardice to his other short-
comings.

THE HOSTILITY OF SAINT-EUSTACHE 75

As for the coldness of Roxalanne, that was a pretty
fable of Chatellerault's; or else no more than an
assumption, an invention of the imaginative La
Fosse. Far, indeed, from it, I found no arrogance or
coldness in her. All unversed in the artifices of her
sex, all unacquainted with the wiles of coquetry, she
was the very incarnation of naturalness and maidenly
simplicity. To the tales that — with many expurga-
tions — I told her of Court life, to the pictures that I
drew of Paris, the Luxembourg, the Louvre, the Pa-
lais Cardinal, and the courtiers that thronged those
historic palaces, she listened avidly and enthralled;
and much as Othello won the heart of Desdemona by
a recital of the perils he had endured, so it seemed to
me was I winning the heart of Roxalanne by telling
her of the things that I had seen.

Once or twice she expressed wonder at the depth
and intimacy of the knowledge of such matters ex-
hibited by a simple Gascon gentleman, whereupon
I would urge, in explanation, the appointment in the
Guards that Lesperon had held some few years ago —
a position that will reveal much to an observant man.

The Vicomte noted our growing intimacy, yet set
no restraint upon it. Down in his heart I believe that
noble gentleman would have been well pleased had
matters gone to extremes between us, for however
impoverished he might deem me — Lesperon's estates
in Gascony being, as I have said, likely to suffer
sequestration in view of his treason — he remembered
the causes of this and the deep devotion of the man I
impersonated to the affairs of Gaston d'Orleans.

Again, he feared the very obvious courtship of the
Chevalier de Saint-Eustache, and he would have wel-

76 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

corned a turn of events that would effectually have
frustrated it. That he did not himself interfere so far
as the Chevalier's wooing was concerned, I could but
set down to the mistrust of Sain t-Eustache — amount-
ing almost to fear — of which he had spoken.

As for the Vicomtesse, the same causes that had
won me some of the daughter's regard gained me also
no little of the mother's.

She had been attached to the Chevalier until my
coming. But what did the Chevalier know of the
great world compared with what I could tell? Her
love of scandal drew her to me with inquiries upon
this person and that person, many of them but names
to her.

My knowledge and wealth of detail — for all that I
curbed it lest I should seem to know too much — de-
lighted her prurient soul. Had she been more motherly,
this same knowledge that I exhibited should have
made her ponder what manner of life I had led, and
should have inspired her to account me no fit com-
panion for her daughter. But a selfish woman, little
inclined to be plagued by the concerns of another —
even when that other was her daughter — she left
things to the destructive course that they were shap-
ing.

And so everything — if we except perhaps the
Chevalier de Saint-Eustache — conspired to the ad-
vancement of my suit, in a manner that must have
made Chatellerault grind his teeth in rage if he could
have witnessed it, but which made me grind mine in
despair when I pondered the situation in detail.

One evening — I had been ten days at the chateau
— we went a half-league or so up the Garonne in a

THE HOSTILITY OF SAINT-EUSTACHE 77

boat, she and I. As we were returning, drifting with
the stream, the oars idle in my hand, I spoke of leav-
ing Lavedan.

She looked up quickly; her expression was almost of
alarm, and her eyes dilated as they met mine — for, as
I have said, she was all unversed in the ways of her
sex, and by nature too guileless to attempt to dis-
guise her feelings or dissemble them.

" But why must you go so soon ? " she asked. " You
are safe at Lavedan, and abroad you may be in
danger. It was but two days ago that they took a poor
young gentleman of these parts at Pau; so that you
see the persecution is not yet ended. Are you " — and
her voice trembled never so slightly — "are you
weary of us, monsieur?"

I shook my head at that, and smiled wistfully.

"Weary?" I echoed. "Surely, mademoiselle, you
do not think it ? Surely your heart must tell you some-
thing very different?"

She dropped her eyes before the passion of my
gaze. And when presently she answered me, there
was no guile in her words; there were the dictates of
the intuitions of her sex, and nothing more.

" But it is possible, monsieur. You are accustomed
to the great world -

"The great world of Lesperon, in Gascony?" I
interrupted.

"No, no; the great world you have inhabited af
Paris and elsewhere. I can understand that at Lave-
dan you should find little of interest, and — and that
your inactivity should render you impatient to be
gone."

"If there were so little to interest me then it might

78 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

be as you say. But, oh, mademoiselle — " I ceased
abruptly. Fool! I had almost fallen a prey to the
seductions that the time afforded me. The balmy,
languorous eventide, the broad, smooth river adown
which we glided, the foliage, the shadows on the water,
her presence, and our isolation amid such surround-
ings, had almost blotted out the matter of the wager
and of my duplicity.

She laughed a little nervous laugh, and — maybe to
ease the tension that my sudden silence had begotten
— "You see," she said, "how your imagination
deserts you when you seek to draw upon it for proof of
what you protest. You were about to tell me of — of
the interests that hold you at Lavedan, and when you
come to ponder them, you find that you can think of
nothing. Is it — is it not so?" She put the question
very timidly, as if half afraid of the answer she might
provoke.

"No; it is not so," I said.

I paused a moment, and in that moment I wrestled
with myself. Confession and avowal — confession of
what I had undertaken, and avowal of the love that
had so unexpectedly come to me — trembled upon
my lips, to be driven shuddering away in fear.

Have I not said that this Bardelys was become a
coward? Then my cowardice suggested a course to
me — flight. I would leave Lavedan. I would return
to Paris and to Chatellerault, owning defeat and pay-
ing my wager. It was the only course open to me. My
honour, so tardily aroused, demanded no less. Yet,
not so much because of that as because it was suddenly
revealed to me as the easier course, did I determine to
pursue it. What thereafter might become of me I did

THE HOSTILITY OF SAINT-EUSTACHE 79

not know, nor in that hour of my heart's agony did it
seem to matter overmuch.

"There is much, mademoiselle, much, indeed, to
hold me firmly at Lavedan," I pursued at last. "But
my — my obligations demand of me that I depart/*

"You mean the Cause," she cried. "But, believe
me, you can do nothing. To sacrifice yourself cannot
profit it. Infinitely better you can serve the Duke by
waiting until the time is ripe for another blow. And
how can you better preserve your life than by re-
maining at Lavedan until the persecutions are at an
end?"

"I was not thinking of the Cause, mademoiselle,,
but of myself alone — of my own personal honour. I
would that I could explain; but I am afraid," I ended
lamely.

"Afraid?" she echoed, now raising her eyes in
wonder.

"Aye, afraid. Afraid of your contempt, of your
scorn."

The wonder in her glance increased and asked a
question that I could not answer. I stretched forward,
and caught one of the hands lying idle in her lap.

"Roxalanne," I murmured very gently, and my
tone, my touch, and the use of her name drove her
eyes for refuge behind their lids again. A flush spread
upon the ivory pallor of her face, to fade as swiftly,
leaving it very white. Her bosom rose and fell in
agitation, and the little hand I held trembled in my
grasp. There was a moment's silence. Not that I had
need to think or choose my words. But there was a
lump in my throat — aye, I take no shame in con-
fessing it, for this was the first time that a good and

8o BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

true emotion had been vouchsafed me since the
Duchesse de Bourgogne had shattered my illusions
ten years ago.

"Roxalanne," I resumed presently, when I was
more master of myself, "we have been good friends,
you and I, since that night when I climbed for shelter
to your chamber, have we not?"

"But yes, monsieur," she faltered.

" Ten days ago it is. Think of it — no more than ten
days. And it seems as if I had been months at Lave-
dan, so well have we become acquainted. In these ten
days we have formed opinions of each other. But with
this difference, that whilst mine are right, yours are
wrong. I have come to know you for the sweetest,
gentlest saint in all this world. Would to God I had
known you earlier! It might have been very different;
I might have been — I would have been — different,
and I would not have done what I have done. You
have come to know me for an unfortunate but honest
gentleman. Such am I not. I am under false colours
here, mademoiselle. Unfortunate I may be — at
least, of late I seem to have become so. Honest I am
not — I have not been. There, child, I can tell you no
more. I am too great a coward. But when later you
shall come to hear the truth — when, after I am gone,
they may tell you a strange story touching this fellow
Lesperon who sought the hospitality of your father's
house — bethink you of my restraint in this hour; be-
think you of my departure. You will understand these
things perhaps afterwards. But bethink you of them,
and you will unriddle them for yourself, perhaps. Be
merciful upon me then; judge me not over-harshly."

I paused, and for a moment we were silent. Then

THE HOSTILITY OF SAINT-EUSTACHE 81

suddenly she looked up; her fingers tightened upon
mine.

"Monsieur de Lesperon," she pleaded, "of what do
you speak? You are torturing me, monsieur."

"Look in my face, Roxalanne. Can you see nothing
there of how I am torturing myself ?"

"Then tell me, monsieur," she begged, her voice a
very caress of suppliant softness, — "tell me what
vexes you and sets a curb upon your tongue. You
exaggerate, I am assured. You could do nothing dis-
honourable, nothing vile."

"Child," I cried, "I thank God, that you are right!
I cannot do what is dishonourable, and I will not, for
all that a month ago I pledged myself to do it!"

A sudden horror, a doubt, a suspicion flashed into
her glance.

" You — you do not mean that you are a spy ? " she
asked; and from my heart a prayer of thanks went up
to Heaven that this at least it was mine frankly to
deny.

"No, no — not that. I am no spy."

Her face cleared again, and she sighed.

"It is, I think, the only thing I could not forgive.
Since it is not that, will you not tell me what it is?"

For a moment the temptation to confess, to tell her
everything, was again upon me. But the futility of it
appalled me.

"Don't ask me," I besought her; "you will learn it
soon enough." For I was confident that once my
wager was paid, the news of it and of the ruin of
Bardelys would spread across the face of France like
a ripple over water. Presently —

"Forgive me for having come into your life, Roxa-

82 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

lanne!" I implored her, and then I sighed again.
"Helas! Had I but known you earlier! I did not
dream such women lived in this worn-out France."

" I will not pry, monsieur, since your resolve appears
to be so firm. But if — if after I have heard this thing
you speak of/' she said presently, speaking with
averted eyes, "and if, having heard it, I judge you
more mercifully than you judge yourself, and I send
for you, will you — will you come back to Lavedan ? "

My heart gave a great bound — a great, a sudden
throb of hope. But as sudden and as great was the re-
bound into despair.

"You will not send for me, be assured of that," I
said with finality; and we spoke no more.

I took the oars and plied them vigorously. I was in
haste to end the situation. To-morrow I must think of
my departure, and, as I rowed, I pondered the words
that had passed between us. Not one word of love had
there been, and yet, in the very omission of it, avowal
had lain on either side. A strange wooing had been
mine — a wooing that precluded the possibility of
winning, and yet a wooing that had won. Aye, it had
won; but it might not take. I made fine distinctions
and quaint paradoxes as I tugged at my oars, for the
human mind is a curiously complex thing, and with
some of us there is no such spur to humour as the sting
of pain.

Roxalanne sat white and very thoughtful, but with
veiled eyes, so that I might guess nothing of what
passed within her mind.

At last we reached the chateau, and as I brought
the boat to the terrace steps, it was Saint-Eustache
who came forward to offer his wrist to Mademoiselle.

THE HOSTILITY OF SAINT-EUSTACHE 83

He noted the pallor of her face, and darted me a quick,
suspicion-laden glance. As we were walking towards
the chateau —

"Monsieur de Lesperon," said he in a curious tone,
"do you know that a rumour of your death is current
in the province?"

" I had hoped that such a rumour might get abroad
when I disappeared," I answered calmly.

"And you have taken no single step to contradict
it?"

"Why should I, since in that rumour may be said to
lie my safety?"

"Nevertheless, monsieur, voyons. Surely you
might at least relieve the anxieties — the affliction, I
might almost say — of those who are mourning you."

"Ah!" said I. "And who may these be?"

He shrugged his shoulders and pursed his lips in a
curiously deprecatory smile. With a sidelong glance
at Mademoiselle —

"Do you need that I name Mademoiselle de Mar-
sac?" he sneered.

I stood still, my wits busily working, my face im-
passive under his scrutinizing glance. In a flash it
came to me that this must be the writer of some of the
letters Lesperon had given me, the original of the
miniature I carried.

As I was silent, I grew suddenly conscious of an-
other pair of eyes observing me — Mademoiselle's.
She remembered what I had said, she may have re-
membered how I had cried out the wish that I had
met her earlier, and she may not have been slow to find
an interpretation for my words. I could have groaned
in my rage at such a misinterpretation. I could have

84 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

taken the Chevalier round to the other side of the
chateau and killed him with the greatest relish in the
world. But I restrained myself, I resigned myself to
be misunderstood. What choice had I ?

"Monsieur de Saint-Eustache," said I very coldly,
and looking him straight between his close-set eyes,
"I have permitted you many liberties, but there is
one that I cannot permit any one — and, much as I
honour you, I can make no exception in your favour.
That is to interfere in my concerns and presume to
dictate to me the manner in which I shall conduct
them. Be good enough to bear that in your memory."

In a moment he was all servility. The sneer passed
out of his face, the arrogance out of his demeanour.
He became as full of smiles and capers as the meanest
sycophant.

" You will forgive me, monsieur!" he cried, spread-
ing his hands, and with the humblest smile in the
world. "I perceive that I have taken a great liberty;
yet you have misunderstood its purport. I sought to
sound you touching the wisdom of a step upon which
I have ventured."

"That is, monsieur?" I asked, throwing back my
head, with the scent of danger breast high.

"I took it upon myself to-day to mention the fact
that you are alive and well to one who had a right, I
thought, to know of it, and who is coming hither to-
morrow."

"That was a presumption you may regret," said I
between my teeth. "To whom do you impart this in-
formation?"

"To your friend, Monsieur de Marsac," he an-
swered, and through his mask of humility the sneer

THE HOSTILITY OF SAINT-EUSTACHE 85

was again growing apparent. "He will be here to-
morrow," he repeated.

Marsac was that friend of Lesperon's to whose
warm commendation of the Gascon rebel I owed the
courtesy and kindness that the Vicomte de Lavedan
had meted out to me since my coming.

Is it wonderful that I stood as if frozen, my wits re-
fusing to work and my countenance wearing, I doubt
not, a very stricken look? Here was one coming to
Lavedan who knew Lesperon — one who would un-
mask me and say that I was an impostor. What
would happen then? A spy they would of a certainty
account me, and that they would make short work of
me I never doubted. But that was something that
troubled me less than the opinion Mademoiselle must
form. How would she interpret what I had said that
day? In what light would she view me hereafter?

Such questions sped like swift arrows through my
mind, and in their train came a dull anger with myself
that I had not told her everything that afternoon. It
was too late now. The confession would come no
longer of my own free will, as it might have done an
hour ago, but would be forced from me by the cir-
cumstances that impended. Thus it would no longer
have any virtue to recommend it to her mercy.

"The news seems hardly welcome, Monsieur de
Lesperon," said Roxalanne in a voice that was in-
scrutable. Her tone stirred me, for it betokened
suspicion already. Something might yet chance to aid
me, and in the mean while I might spoil all did I yield
to this dread of the morrow. By an effort I mastered
myself, and in tones calm and level, that betrayed
nothing of the tempest in my soul —

86 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

" It is not welcome, mademoiselle," I answered. "I
have excellent reasons for not desiring to meet Mon-
sieur de Marsac."

"Excellent, indeed, are they!" lisped Saint-
Eustache, with an ugly droop at the corners of his
mouth. "I doubt not you'll find it hard to offer a
plausible reason for having left him and his sister with-
out news that you were alive."

"Monsieur," said I at random, "why will you drag
in his sister's name?"

"Why?" he echoed, and he eyed me with undis-
guised amusement. He was standing erect, his head
thrown back, his right arm outstretched from the
shoulder, and his hand resting lightly upon the gold
mount of his beribboned cane. He let his eyes wander
from me to Roxalanne, then back again to me. At
last: "Is it wonderful that I should drag in the
name of your betrothed?" said he. "But perhaps
you will deny that Mademoiselle de Marsac is that to
you? " he suggested.

And I, forgetting for the moment the part I played
and the man whose identity I had put on, made
answer hotly: "I do deny it."

"Why, then, you lie," said he, and shrugged his
shoulders with insolent contempt.

In all my life I do not think it could be said of me
that I had ever given way to rage. Rude, untutored
minds may fall a prey to passion, but a gentleman, I
hold, is never angry. Nor was I then, so far as the out-
ward signs of anger count. I doffed my hat with a
sweep to Roxalanne, who stood by with fear and
wonder blending in her glance.

"Mademoiselle, you will forgive that I find it

THE HOSTILITY OF SAINT-EUSTACHE 87

necessary to birch this babbling schoolboy in your
presence."

Then, with the pleasantest manner in the world, I
stepped aside, and plucked the cane from the Cheva-
lier's hand before he had so much as guessed what I
was about. I bowed before him with the utmost
politeness, as if craving his leave and tolerance for
what I was about to do, and then, before he had re-
covered from his astonishment, I had laid that cane
three times in quick succession across his shoulders.
With a cry at once of pain and of mortification, he
sprang back, and his hand dropped to his hilt.

4 'Monsieur," Roxalanne cried to him, "do you not
see that he is unarmed?"

But he saw nothing, or, if he saw, thanked Heaven
that things were in such case, and got his sword out.
Thereupon Roxalanne would have stepped between
us, but with arm outstretched I restrained her.

"Have no fear, mademoiselle," said I very quietly;
for if the wrist that had overcome La Vertoile were
not, with a stick, a match for a couple of such swords
as this coxcomb's, then was I forever shamed.

He bore down upon me furiously, his point coming
straight for my throat. I took the blade on the cane;
then, as he disengaged and came at me lower, I made
a counter-parry, and pursuing the circle after I had
caught his steel, I carried it out of his hand. It
whirled an instant, a shimmering wheel of light, then
it clattered against the marble balustrade half a dozen
yards away. With his sword it seemed that his
courage, too, departed, and he stood at my mercy, a
curious picture of foolishness, surprise, and fear.

Now the Chevalier de Saint-Eustache was a young

88 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

man, and in the young we can forgive much. But to
forgive such an act as he had been guilty of — that
of drawing his sword upon a man who carried no
weapons — would have been not only a ridiculous
toleration, but an utter neglect of duty. As an older
man it behoved me to read the Chevalier a lesson
in manners and gentlemanly feeling. So, quite dis-
passionately, and purely for his own future good, I
went about the task, and administered him a thrash-
ing that for thoroughness it would be hard to better.
I was not discriminating. I brought my cane down
with a rhythmical precision, and whether it took him
on the head, the back, or the shoulders, I held to be
more his affair than mine. I had a moral to inculcate,
and the injuries he might receive in the course of it
were inconsiderable details so that the lesson was
borne in upon his soul. Two or three times he sought
to close with me, but I eluded him; I had no mind to
descend to a vulgar exchange of blows. My object
was not to brawl, but to administer chastisement, and
this object I may claim to have accomplished with a
fair degree of success.

At last Roxalanne interfered; but only when one
blow a little more violent, perhaps, than its precursors
resulted in the sudden snapping of the cane and Mon-
sieur de Eustache's utter collapse into a moaning heap.

"I deplore, mademoiselle, to have offended your
sight with such a spectacle, but unless these lessons
are administered upon the instant their effect is not
half so salutary."

"He deserved it, monsieur," said she, with a note
almost of fierceness in her voice. And of such poor
mettle are we that her resentment against that groan-

THE HOSTILITY OF SAINT-EUSTACHE 89

ing mass of fopperies and wheals sent a thrill of
pleasure through me. I walked over to the spot where
his sword had fallen, and picked it up.

"Monsieur de Saint-Eustache," said I, "you have
so dishonoured this blade that I do not think you
would care to wear it again." Saying which, I snapped
it across my knee, and flung it far out into the river,
for all that the hilt was a costly one, richly wrought in
bronze and gold.

He raised his livid countenance, and his eyes blazed
impotent fury.

"Par la mort Dieu!" he cried hoarsely, "you shall
give me satisfaction for this!"

"If you account yourself still unsatisfied, I am at
your service when you will," said I courteously.

Then, before more could be said, I saw Monsieur de
Lavedan and the Vicomtesse approaching hurriedly
across the parterre. The Vicomte's brow was black
with what might have appeared anger, but which I
rightly construed into apprehension.

" What has taken place ? What have you done ? " he
asked of me.

"He has brutally assaulted the Chevalier," cried
Madame shrilly, her eyes malevolently set upon me.
"He is only a child, this poor Saint-Eustache," she
reproached me. "I saw it all from my window, Mon-
sieur de Lesperon. It was brutal; it was cowardly. So
to beat a boy! Shame! If you had a quarrel with him,
are there not prescribed methods for their adjustment
between gentlemen? Pardieu, could you not have
given him proper satisfaction?"

"If madame will give herself the trouble of atten-
tively examining this poor Saint-Eustache," said I,

90 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

with a sarcasm which her virulence prompted, "you
will agree, I think, that I have given him very proper
and very thorough satisfaction. I would have met
him sword in hand, but the Chevalier has the fault of
the very young — he is precipitate; he was in too
great a haste, and he could not wait until I got a
sword. So I was forced to do what I could with a
cane."

" But you provoked him," she flashed back.

"Whoever told you so has misinformed you,
madame. On the contrary, he provoked me. He gave
me the lie. I struck him — could I do less? — and he
drew. I defended myself, and I supplemented my de-
fence by a caning, so that this poor Saint-Eustache
might realize the unworthiness of what-he had done.
That is all, madame."

But she was not so easily to be appeased, not even
when Mademoiselle and the Vicomte joined their voices
to mine in extenuation of my conduct. It was like
Lavedan. For all that he was full of dread of the
result and of the vengeance Saint-Eustache might
wreak — boy though he was — he expressed himself
freely touching the Chevalier's behaviour and the fit-
tingness of the punishment that had overtaken him.

The Vicomtesse stood in small awe of her husband,
but his judgment upon a point of honour was a matter
that she would not dare contest. She was ministering
to the still prostrate Chevalier who, I think, remained
prostrate now that he might continue to make appeal
to her sympathy — when suddenly she cut in upon
Roxalanne's defence of me.

"Where have you been?" she demanded suddenly.

"When, my mother?"

THE HOSTILITY OF SAINT-EUSTACHE 91

"This afternoon," answered the Vicomtesse im-
patiently. "The Chevalier was waiting two hours for
you."

Roxalanne coloured to the roots of her hair. The
Vicomte frowned.

"Waiting for me, my mother? But why for me?"

"Answer my question — where have you been?"

"I was with Monsieur de Lesperon," she answered
simply.

"Alone?" the Vicomtesse almost shrieked.

"But yes." The poor child's tones were laden with
wonder at this catechism.

"God's death!" she snapped. "It seems that my
daughter is no better than — "

Heaven knows what may have been coming, for she
had the most virulent, scandalous tongue that I have
ever known in a woman's head — which is much for
one who has lived at Court to say. But the Vicomte,
sharing my fears, perhaps, and wishing to spare the
child's ears, interposed quickly —

" Come, madame, what airs are these ? What sudden
assumption of graces that we do not affect? We are
not in Paris. This is not the Luxembourg. En province
comme en province, and here we are simple folk — "

"Simple folk?" she interrupted, gasping. "By God,
am I married to a ploughman? Am I Vicomtesse of
Lavedan, or the wife of a boor of the countryside ? And
is the honour of your daughter a matter — "

"The honour of my daughter is not in question,
madame," he interrupted in his turn, and with a
sudden sternness that spent the fire of her indignation
as a spark that is trampled underfoot. Then, in a
calm, level voice: "Ah, here are the servants," said he.

92 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

"Permit them, madame, to take charge of Monsieur
de Saint-Eustache. Anatole, you had better order the
carriage for Monsieur le Chevalier. I do not think
that he will be able to ride home."

Anatole peered at the pale young gentleman on the
ground, then he turned his little wizened face upon
me, and grinned in a singularly solemn fashion. Mon-
sieur de Saint-Eustache was little loved, it seemed.

Leaning heavily upon the arm of one of the lacqueys,
the Chevalier moved painfully towards the courtyard,
where the carriage was being prepared for him. At the
last moment he turned and beckoned the Vicomte to
his side.

"As God lives, Monsieur de Lav£dan," he swore,
breathing heavily in the fury that beset him, "you
shall bitterly regret having taken sides to-day with
that Gascon bully. Remember me, both of you, when
you are journeying to Toulouse."

The Vicomte stood beside him, impassive and un-
moved by that grim threat, for all that to him it must
have sounded like a death-sentence.

"Adieu, monsieur — a speedy recovery," was all he
answered.

But I stepped up to them. "Do you not think,
Vicomte, that it were better to detain him?" I asked.

"Pshaw!" he ejaculated. "Let him go."

The Chevalier's eyes met mine in a look of terror.
Perhaps already that young man repented him of his
menace, and he realized the folly of threatening one in
whose power he still chanced to be.

"Bethink you, monsieur," I cried. "Yours is a
noble and useful life. Mine is not without value,
either. Shall we suffer these lives — aye, and the

THE HOSTILITY OF SAINT-EUSTACHE 93

happiness of your wife and daughter — to be de-
stroyed by this vermin ? "

"Let him go, monsieur; let him go. I am not
afraid."

I bowed and stepped back, motioning to the lacquey
to take the fellow away, much as I should have
motioned him to remove some uncleanness from be-
fore me.

The Vicomtesse withdrew in high dudgeon to her
chamber, and I did not see her again that evening.
Mademoiselle I saw once, for a moment, and she
employed that moment to question me touching the
origin of my quarrel with Saint-Eustache.

"Did he really lie, Monsieur de Lesperon?" she
asked.

"Upon my honour, mademoiselle," I answered
solemnly, "I have plighted my troth to no living
woman." Then my chin sank to my breast as I be-
thought me of how to-morrow she must opine me the
vilest liar living — for I was resolved to be gone before
Marsac arrived — since the real Lesperon I did not
doubt was, indeed, betrothed to Mademoiselle de
Marsac.

" I shall leave Lavedan betimes to-morrow, made-
moiselle," I pursued presently. "What has happened
to-day makes my departure all the more urgent.
Delay may have its dangers. You will hear strange
things of me, as already I have warned you. But be
merciful. Much will be true, much false; yet the
truth itself is very vile, and — "I stopped short, in
despair of explaining or even tempering what had to
come. I shrugged my shoulders in my abandonment
of hope, and I turned towards the window. She
crossed the room and came to stand beside me.

94 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

"Will you not tell me? Have you no faith in me?
Ah, Monsieur de Lesperon — "

" 'Sh ! child, I cannot. It is too late to tell you now."

"Oh, not too late! From what you say they will
tell me, I should think, perhaps, worse of you than
you deserve. What is this thing you hide? What is
this mystery? Tell me, monsieur. Tell me."

Did ever woman more plainly tell a man she loved
him, and that loving him she would find all excuses
for him? Was ever woman in better case to hear a
confession from the man that loved her, and of whose
love she was assured by every instinct that her sex
possesses in such matters ? Those two questions leapt
into my mind, and in resolving them I all but deter-
mined to speak even now in the eleventh hour.

And then — I know not how — a fresh barrier
seemed to arise. It was not merely a matter of telling
her of the wager I was embarked upon; not merely a
matter of telling her of the duplicity that I had
practised, of the impostures by which I had gained
admittance to her father's confidence and trust; not
merely a matter of confessing that I was not Lesperon.
There would still be the necessity of saying who I was.
Even if she forgave all else, could she forgive me for be-
ing Bardelys — the notorious Bardelys, the libertine,
the rake, some of whose exploits she had heard of
from her mother, painted a hundred times blacker
than they really were? Might she not shrink from me
when I told her I was that man ? In her pure innocence
she deemed, no doubt, that the life of every man who
accounted himself a gentleman was moderately clean.
She would not see in me — as did her mother — no
more than a type of the best class in France, and hav-

THE HOSTILITY OF SAINT-EUSTACHE 95

ing no more than the vices of my order. As a mon-
ster of profligacy might she behold me, and that —
ah, Dieu ! — I could not endure that she should do
whilst I was by.

It may be — indeed, now, as I look back, I know —
that I exaggerated my case. I imagined she would see
it as I saw it then. For — would you credit it? —
with this great love that was now come to me, it
seemed the ideals of my boyhood were returned, and I
abhorred the man that I had been. The life I had led
now filled me with disgust and loathing; the notions
I had formed seemed to me now all vicious and dis-
torted, my cynicism shallow and unjust.

"Monsieur de Lesperon," she called softly to me,
noting my silence.

I turned to her. I set my hand lightly upon her arm ;
I let my gaze encounter the upward glance of her eyes
— blue as forget-me-nots.

"You suffer!" she murmured, with sweet com-
passion.

"Worse, Roxalanne! I have sown in your heart too
the seed of suffering. Oh, I am too unworthy!" I
cried out; "and when you come to discover how un-
worthy it will hurt you; it will sting your pride to
think how kind you were to me." She smiled in-
credulously, in denial of my words. "No, child; I can-
not tell you."

She sighed, and then before more could be said
there was a sound at the door, and we started away
from each other. The Vicomte entered, and my last
chance of confessing, of perhaps averting much of
what followed, was lost to me.

CHAPTER Vin
THE PORTRAIT

INTO the mind of every thoughtful man must come
at times with bitterness the reflection of how utterly
we are at the mercy of Fate, the victims of her every
whim and caprice. We may set out with the loftiest,
the sternest resolutions to steer our lives along a well-
considered course, yet the slightest of fortuitous cir-
cumstances will suffice to force us into a direction
that we had no thought of taking.

Now, had it pleased Monsieur de Marsac to have
come to Lavedan at any reasonable hour of the day, I
should have been already upon the road to Paris, in-
tent to own defeat and pay my wager. A night of
thought, besides strengthening my determination to
follow such a course, had brought the reflection that I
might thereafter return to Roxalanne, a poor man, it
is true, but one at least whose intentions might not be
misconstrued.

And so, when at last I sank into sleep, my mind was
happier than it had been for many days. Of Roxa-
lanne's love I was assured, and it seemed that I might
win her, after all, once I removed the barrier of shame
that now deterred me. It may be that those thoughts
kept me awake until a late hour, and that to this I
owe it that when on the morrow I awakened the
morning was well advanced. The sun was flooding my
chamber, and at my bedside stood Anatole.

"What's o'clock?" I inquired, sitting bolt upright.

THE PORTRAIT 97

"Past ten," said he, with stern disapproval.

"And you have let me sleep?" I cried.

"We do little else at Lavedan even when we are
awake," he grumbled. "There was no reason why
monsieur should rise." Then, holding out a paper,
" Monsieur Stanislas de Marsac was here betimes this
morning with Mademoiselle his sister. He left this
letter for you, monsieur."

Amaze and apprehension were quickly followed by
relief, since Anatole's words suggested that Marsac
had not remained. I took the letter, nevertheless,
with some misgivings, and whilst I turned it over in
my hands I questioned the old servant.

"He stayed an hour at the chateau, monsieur,"
Anatole informed me. "Monsieur le Vicomte would
have had you roused, but he would not hear of it. 'If
what Monsieur de Saint-Eustache has told me touch-
ing your guest should prove to be true/ said he, 'I
would prefer not to meet him under your roof, mon-
sieur/ 'Monsieur de Saint-Eustache/ my master
replied, 'is not a person whose word should have
weight with any man of honour/ But in spite of that,
Monsieur de Marsac held to his resolve, and although
he would offer no explanation in answer to my master's
many questions, you were not aroused.

"At the end of a half-hour his sister entered with
Mademoiselle. They had been walking together on
the terrace, and Mademoiselle de Marsac appeared
very angry. 'Affairs are exactly as Monsieur de Saint-
Eustache has represented them/ said she to her
brother. At that he swore a most villainous oath, and
called for writing materials. At the moment of his de-
parture he desired me to deliver this letter to you, and

98 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

then rode away in a fury, and, seemingly, not on the
best of terms with Monsieur le Vicomte."

"And his sister?" I asked quickly.

"She went with him. A fine pair, as I live!" he
added, casting his eyes to the ceiling.

At least I could breathe freely. They were gone,
and whatever damage they may have done to the
character of poor Rene de Lesperon ere they departed,
they were not there, at all events, to denounce me for
an impostor. With a mental apology to the shade of
the departed Lesperon for all the discredit I was bring-
ing down upon his name, I broke the seal of that
momentous epistle, which enclosed a length of some
thirty-two inches of string.

Monsieur [I read], wherever I may chance to meet you it
shall be my duty to kill you.

A rich beginning, in all faith! If he could but main-
tain that uncompromising dramatic flavour to the
end, his epistle should be worth the trouble of de-
ciphering, for he penned a vile scrawl of pothooks.

It is because of this [the letter proceeded] that I have re-
frained from coming face to face with you this morning.
The times are too troublous and the province is in too
dangerous a condition to admit of an act that might draw
the eyes of the Keeper of the Seals upon Lavedan. To my
respect, then, to Monsieur le Vicomte and to my own de-
votion to the Cause we mutually serve do you owe it that
you still live. I am on my way to Spain to seek shelter there
from the King's vengeance.

To save myself is a duty that I owe as much to myself as
to the Cause. But there is another duty, one that I owe my
sister, whom you have so outrageously slighted, and this
duty, by God's grace, I will perform before I leave. Of your

THE PORTRAIT 99

honour, monsieur, we will not speak, for reasons into which
I need not enter, and I make no appeal to it. But if you
have a spark of manhood left, if you are not an utter craven
as well as a knave, I shall expect you on the day after to-
morrow, at any hour before noon, at the Auberge de la
Couronne at Grenade. There, monsieur, if you please, we
will adjust our differences. That you may come prepared,
and so that no time need be wasted when we meet, I send
you the length of my sword.

Thus ended that angry, fire-breathing epistle. I re-
folded it thoughtfully, then, having taken my resolve,
I leapt from the bed and desired Anatole to assist me
to dress.

I found the Vicomte much exercised in mind as to
the meaning of Marsac's extraordinary behaviour, and
I was relieved to see that he, at least, could conjecture
no cause for it. In reply to the questions with which
he very naturally assailed me, I assured him that it
was no more than a matter of a misunderstanding;
that Monsieur de Marsac had asked me to meet him
at Grenade in two days' time, and that I should then,
no doubt, be able to make all clear.

Meanwhile, I regretted the incident, since it ne-
cessitated my remaining and encroaching for two
days longer upon the Vicomte's hospitality. To all
this, however, he made the reply that I expected, con-
cluding with the remark that for the present at least
it would seem as if the Chevalier de Saint-Eustache
had been satisfied with creating this trouble betwixt
myself and Marsac.

From what Anatole had said, I had already con-
cluded that Marsac had exercised the greatest reti-
cence. But the interview between his sister and

ioo BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

Roxalanne filled me with the gravest anxiety. Women
are not wont to practise the restraint of men under
such circumstances, and for all that Mademoiselle de
Marsac may not have expressed it in so many words
that I was her faithless lover, yet women are quick to
detect and interpret the signs of disorders springing
from such causes, and I had every fear that Roxalanne
was come to the conclusion that I had lied to her
yesternight. With an uneasy spirit, then, I went in
quest of her, and I found her walking in the old rose
garden behind the chateau.

She did not at first remark my approach, and I had
leisure for some moments to observe her and to note
the sadness that dwelt in her profile and the listless-
ness of her movements. This, then, was my work —
mine, and that of Monsieur de Chatellerault, and
those other merry gentlemen who had sat at my table
in Paris nigh upon a month ago.

I moved, and the gravel crunched under my foot,
whereupon she turned, and, at sight of me advancing
towards her, she started. The blood mounted to her
face, to ebb again upon the instant, leaving it paler
than it had been. She made as if to depart; then she
appeared to check herself, and stood immovable and
outwardly calm, awaiting my approach.

But her eyes were averted, and her bosom rose and
fell too swiftly to lend colour to that mask of in-
difference she hurriedly put on. Yet, as I drew nigh,
she was the first to speak, and the triviality of her
words came as a shock to me, and — for all my knowl-
edge of woman's way — caused me to doubt for a
moment whether perhaps her calm were not real, after
all.

THE PORTRAIT 101

"You are a laggard this morning, Monsieur de
Lesperon." And, with a half laugh, she turned aside
to break a rose from its stem.

"True," I answered stupidly; "I slept over-late."

"A thousand pities, since thus you missed seeing
Mademoiselle de Marsac. Have they told you that
she was here?"

"Yes, mademoiselle. Stanislas de Marsac left a
letter for me."

"You will regret not having seen them, no doubt?"
quoth she.

I evaded the interrogative note in her voice. "That
is their fault. They appear to have preferred to avoid

me."

"Is it matter for wonder?" she flashed, with a sud-
den gleam of fury which she as suddenly controlled.
With the old indifference, she added, "You do not
seem perturbed, monsieur?"

"On the contrary, mademoiselle; I am very deeply
perturbed."

"At not having seen your — betrothed?" she
asked, and now for the first time her eyes were raised,
and they met mine with a look that was a stab.

"Mademoiselle, I had the honour of telling you
yesterday that I had plighted my troth to no living

woman."

At that reminder of yesterday she winced, and I
was sorry that I had uttered it, for it must have set
the wound in her pride a-bleeding again. Yesterday I
had as much as told her that I loved her, and yester-
day she had as much as answered me that she loved
me, for yesterday I had sworn that Saint-Eustache's
story of my betrothal was a lie. To-day she had had

102 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

assurance of the truth from the very woman to whom
Lesperon's faith was plighted, and I could imagine
something of her shame.

" Yesterday, monsieur," she answered contemp-
tuously, "you lied in many things."

"Nay, I spoke the truth in all. Oh, God in heaven,
mademoiselle," I exclaimed in sudden passion, "will
you not believe me? Will you not accept my word for
what I say, and have a little patience until I shall have
discharged such obligations as will permit me to
explain?"

"Explain?" quoth she, with withering disdain.

"There is a hideous misunderstanding in all this. I
am the victim of a miserable chain of circumstances.
Oh, I can say no more! These Marsacs I shall easily
pacify. I am to meet Monsieur de Marsac at Grenade
on the day after to-morrow. In my pocket I have a
letter from this living sword-blade, in which he tells
me that he will give himself the pleasure of killing me
then. Yet—"

"I hope he does, monsieur!" she cut in, with a
fierceness before which I fell dumb and left my
sentence unfinished. " I shall pray God that he may ! "
she added. "You deserve it as no man deserved it
yet!"

For a moment I stood stricken, indeed, by her
words. Then, my reason grasping the motive of that
fierceness, a sudden joy pervaded me. It was a fierce-
ness breathing that hatred that is a part of love, than
which, it is true, no hatred can be more deadly. And
yet so eloquently did it tell me of those very feelings
which she sought jealously to conceal, that, moved by
a sudden impulse, I stepped close up to her.

THE PORTRAIT 103

"Roxalanne," I said fervently, "you do not hope
for it. What would your life be if I were dead ? Child,
child, you love me even as I love you." I caught her
suddenly to me with infinite tenderness, with rever-
ence almost. "Can you lend no ear to the voice of
this love? Can you not have faith in me a little?
Can you not think that if I were quite as unworthy
as you make-believe to your very self, this love could
have no place?"

"It has no place!" she cried. "You lie — as in all
things else. I do not love you. I hate you. Dieu!
How I hate you!"

She had lain in my arms until then, with upturned
face and piteous, frightened eyes — like a bird that
feels itself within the toils of a snake, yet whose
horror is blent with a certain fascination. Now, as
she spoke, her will seemed to reassert itself, and she
struggled to break from me. But as her fierceness
of hatred grew, so did my fierceness of resolve gain
strength, and I held her tightly.

"Why do you hate me?" I asked steadily. "Ask
yourself, Roxalanne, and tell me what answer your
heart makes. Does it not answer that indeed you do
not hate me — that you love me?"

"Oh, God, to be so insulted!" she cried out. "Will
you not release me, miserable? Must I call for help?
Oh, you shall suffer for this! As there is a Heaven,
you shall be punished!"

But in my passion I held her, despite entreaties,
threats, and struggles. I was brutal, if you will. Yet
think of what was in my soul at being so misjudged, at
finding myself in this position, and deal not over-
harshly with me. The courage to confess which I had

io4 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

lacked for days, came to me then. I must tell her.
Let the result be what it might, it could not be worse
than this, and this I could endure no longer.

"Listen, Roxalanne!"

"I will not listen! Enough of insults have I heard
already. Let me go!"

"Nay, but you shall hear me. I am not Rene de
Lesperon. Had these Marsacs been less impetuous
and foolish, had they waited to have seen me this
morning, they would have told you so."

She paused for a second in her struggles to regard
me. Then, with a sudden contemptuous laugh, she re-
newed her efforts more vigorously than before.

"What fresh lies do you offer me? Release me; I
will hear no more!"

"As Heaven is my witness, I have told you the
truth. I know how wild a sound it has, and that is
partly why I did not tell you earlier. But your disdain
I cannot suffer. That you should deem me a liar in
professing to love you — "

Her struggles were grown so frantic that I was
forced to relax my grip. But this I did with a sudden-
ness that threw her out of balance, and she was in
danger of falling backwards. To save herself, she
caught at my doublet, which was torn open under the
strain.

We stood some few feet apart, and, white and
palpitating in her anger, she confronted me. Her eyes
lashed me with their scorn, but under my steady, un-
flinching gaze they fell at last. When next she raised
them there was a smile of quiet but unutterable con-
tempt upon her lips.

"Will you swear," said she, "that you are not

THE PORTRAIT 105

Rene de Lesperon? That Mademoiselle de Marsac is
not your betrothed?"

"Yes — by my every hope of Heaven!" I cried
passionately.

She continued to survey me with that quiet smile of
mocking scorn.

"I have heard it said," quoth she, "that the great-
est liars are ever those that are readiest to take oath."
Then, with a sudden gasp of loathing, " I think you
have dropped something, monsieur," said she, point-
ing to the ground. And without waiting for more, she
swung round and left me.

Face upwards at my feet lay the miniature that
poor Lesperon had entrusted to me in his dying
moments. It had dropped from my doublet in the
struggle, and I never doubted now but that the
picture it contained was that of Mademoiselle de
Marsac.

CHAPTER IX
A NIGHT ALARM

I WAS returning that same afternoon from a long
walk that I had taken — for my mood was of that
unenviable sort that impels a man to be moving —
when I found a travelling-chaise drawn up in the quad-
rangle as if ready for a journey. As I mounted the
steps of the chateau I came face to face with mademoi-
selle, descending. I drew aside that she might pass,
and this she did with her chin in the air, and her petti-
coat drawn to her that it might not touch me.

I would have spoken to her, but her eyes looked
straight before her with a glance that was too for-
bidding; besides which there was the gaze of a half-
dozen grooms upon us. So, bowing before her — the
plume of my doffed hat sweeping the ground — I let
her go. Yet I remained standing where she had passed
me, and watched her enter the coach. I looked after
the vehicle as it wheeled round and rattled out over
the drawbridge, to raise a cloud of dust on the white,
dry road beyond.

In that hour I experienced a sense of desolation and
a pain to which I find it difficult to give expression.
It seemed to me as if she had gone out of my life for all
time — as if no reparation that I could ever make
would suffice to win her back after what had passed
between us that morning. Already wounded in her
pride by what Mademoiselle de Marsac had told her
of our relations, my behaviour in the rose garden had

A NIGHT ALARM 107

completed the work of turning into hatred the tender
feelings that but yesterday she had all but confessed
for me. That she hated me now, I was well assured.
My reflections as I walked had borne it in upon me
how rash, how mad had been my desperate action, and
with bitterness I realized that I had destroyed the last
chance of ever mending matters.

Not even the payment of my wager and my return
in my true character could avail me now. The pay-
ment of my wager, forsooth! Even that lost what
virtue it might have contained. Where was the
heroism of such an act? Had I not failed, indeed?
And was not, therefore, the payment of my wager be-
come inevitable?

Fool! fool! Why had I not profited that gentle
mood of hers when we had drifted down the stream to-
gether? Why had I not told her then of the whole
business from its ugly inception down to the pass to
which things were come, adding that to repair the
evil I was going back to Paris to pay my wager, and
that when that was done, I would return to ask her to
become my wife? That was the course a man of sense
would have adopted. He would have seen the dangers
that beset him in my false position, and would have
been quick to have forestalled them in the only
manner possible.

Heigh-ho! It was done. The game was at an end,
and I had bungled my part of it like any fool. One
task remained me — that of meeting Marsac at
Grenade and doing justice to the memory of poor
Lesperon. What might betide thereafter mattered
little. I should be ruined when I had settled with
Chatellerault, and Marcel de Saint-Pol de Bardelys,

108 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

that brilliant star in the firmament of the Court of
France, would suffer an abrupt eclipse, would be
quenched for all time. But this weighed little with
me then. I had lost everything that I might have
valued — everything that might have brought fresh
zest to a jaded, satiated life.

Later that day I was told by the Vicomte that there
was a rumour current to the effect that the Marquis
de Bardelys was dead. Idly I inquired how the ru-
mour had been spread, and he told me that a rider-
less horse, which had been captured a few days ago by
some peasants, had been recognized by Monsieur de
Bardelys's servants as belonging to their master, and
that as nothing had been seen or heard of him for a
fortnight, it was believed that he must have met with
some mischance. Not even that piece of information
served to arouse my interest. Let them believe me
dead if they would. To him that is suffering worse
than death to be accounted dead is a small matter.

The next day passed without incident. Mademoi-
selle's absence continued and I would have questioned
the Vicomte concerning it, but a not unnatural
hesitancy beset me, and I refrained.

On the morrow I was to leave Lavedan, but there
were no preparations to be made, no packing to be
done, for during my sojourn there I had been indebted
to the generous hospitality of the Vicomte for my very
apparel. We supped quietly together that night —
the Vicomte and I — for the Vicomtesse was keeping
her room.

I withdrew early to my chamber, and long I lay
awake, revolving a gloomy future in my mind. I had
given no thought to what I should do after having

A NIGHT ALARM 109

offered my explanation to Monsieur de Marsac on the
morrow, nor could I now bring myself to consider it
with any degree of interest. I would communicate
with Chatellerault to inform him that I accounted my
wager lost. I would send him my note of hand, mak-
ing over to him my Picardy estates, and I would re-
quest him to pay off and disband my servants both in
Paris and at Bardelys.

As for myself, I did not know, and, as I have hinted,
I cared but little, in what places my future life might
lie. I had still a little property by Beaugency, but
scant inclination to withdraw to it. To Paris I would
not return; that much I was determined upon; but
upon no more. I had thoughts of going to Spain. Yet
that course seemed no less futile than any other of
which I could bethink me. I fell asleep at last, vowing
that it would be a mercy and a fine solution to the
puzzle of how to dispose of the future if I were to
awaken no more.

I was, however, destined to be roused again just as
the veil of night was being lifted and the chill breath
of dawn was upon the world. There was a loud knock-
ing at the gates of Lavedan, confused noises of voices,
of pattering feet, of doors opening and closing within
the chateau.

There was a rapping at my chamber door, and when
I went to open, I found the Vicomte on the threshold,
nightcapped, in his shirt, and bearing a lighted taper.

"There are troopers at the gate!" he exclaimed as
he entered the room. "That dog Saint-Eustache has
already been at work!"

For all the agitation that must have been besetting
him, his manner was serene as ever. "What are we to
do? "he asked.

no BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

"You are admitting them — naturally?" said I,
inquiry in my voice.

"Why, yes"; and he shrugged his shoulders. "What
could it avail us to resist them ? Even had I been pre-
pared for it, it would be futile to attempt to suffer a
siege."

I wrapped a dressing-gown about me, for the morn-
ing air was chill.

"Monsieur le Vicomte," said I gravely, "I heartily
deplore that Monsieur de Marsac's affairs should have
detained me here. But for him, I had left Lavedan
two days ago. As it is, I tremble for you, but we may
at least hope that my being taken in your house will
draw down no ill results upon you. I shall never for-
give myself if through my having taken refuge here I
should have encompassed your destruction."

"There is no question of that," he replied, with the
quick generosity characteristic of the man. "This is
the work of Saint-Eustache. Sooner or later I always
feared that it would happen, for sooner or later he
and I must have come to enmity over my daughter.
That knave had me in his power. He knew — being
himself outwardly one of us — to what extent I was
involved in the late rebellion, and I knew enough of
him to be assured that if some day he should wish to
do me ill, he would never scruple to turn traitor. I am
afraid, Monsieur de Lesperon, that it is not for you
alone — perhaps not for you at all — that the soldiers
have come, but for me."

Then, before I could answer him, the door was flung
wide, and into the room, in nightcap and hastily
donned robe — looking a very megere in that dis-
figuring deshabille — swept the Vicomtesse.

A NIGHT ALARM in

"See," she cried to her husband, her strident voice
raised in reproach — "see to what a pass you have
brought us!"

"Anne, Anne!" he exclaimed, approaching her and
seeking to soothe her; "be calm, my poor child, and
be brave."

But, evading him, she towered, lean and malevolent
as a fury.

"Calm?" she echoed contemptuously. "Brave?"
Then a short laugh broke from her — a despairing,
mocking, mirthless expression of anger. " By God, do
you add effrontery to your other failings? Dare you
bid me be calm and brave in such an hour? Have I
been warning you fruitlessly these twelve months past,
that, after disregarding me and deriding my warnings,
you should bid me be calm now that my fears are
realized?"

There was a sound of creaking gates below. The
Vicomte heard it.

"Madame," he said, putting aside his erstwhile
tender manner, and speaking with a lofty dignity,
"the troopers have been admitted. Let me entreat
you to retire. It is not befitting our station — "

"What is our station?" she interrupted harshly.
" Rebels — proscribed, houseless beggars. That is our
station, thanks to you and your insane meddling with
treason. What is to become of us, fool? What is to be-
come of Roxalanne and me when they shall have
hanged you and have driven us from Lavedan? By
God's death, a fine season this to talk of the dignity of
our station ! Did I not warn you, malheureux, to leave
party faction alone? You laughed at me."

"Madame, your memory does me an injustice," he

ii2 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

answered in a strangled voice. "I never laughed at
you in all my life."

"You did as much, at least. Did you not bid me
busy myself with women's affairs? Did you not bid
me leave you to follow your own judgment ? You have
followed it — to a pretty purpose, as God lives ! These
gentlemen of the King's will cause you to follow it a
little farther," she pursued, with heartless, loathsome
sarcasm. "You will follow it as far as the scaffold at
Toulouse. That, you will tell me, is your own affair.
But what provision have you made for your wife and
daughter? Did you marry me and get her to leave us
to perish of starvation ? Or are we to turn kitchen
wenches or sempstresses for our livelihood?"

With a groan, the Vicomte sank down upon the bed
and covered his face with his hands.

" God pity me ! " he cried, in a voice of agony — an
agony such as the fear of death could never have in-
fused into his brave soul; an agony born of the heart-
lessness of this woman who for twenty years had
shared his bed and board, and who now in the hour of
his adversity failed him so cruelly — so tragically.

"Aye," she mocked in her bitterness, "call upon
God to pity you, for I shall not."

She paced the room now, like a caged lioness, her
face livid with the fury that possessed her. She no
longer asked questions; she no longer addressed him;
oath followed oath from her thin lips, and the hideous-
ness of this woman's blasphemy made me shudder. At
last there were heavy steps upon the stairs, and,
moved by a sudden impulse —

"Madame," I cried, "let me prevail upon you to
restrain yourself."

A NIGHT ALARM 113

She swung round to face me, her close-set eyes
ablaze with anger.

"Sangdieu! By what right do you — " she began.
But this was no time to let a woman's tongue go
babbling on; no time for ceremony; no season for
making a leg and addressing her with a simper. I
caught her viciously by the wrist, and with my face
close up to hers —

"Folle!" I cried, and I'll swear no man had ever
used the word to her before. She gasped and choked
in her surprise and rage. Then lowering my voice lest
it should reach the approaching soldiers: "Would you
ruin the Vicomte and yourself?" I muttered. Her
eyes asked me a question, and I answered it. "How
do you know that the soldiers have come for your
husband Pit may be that they are seeking me — and
only me. They may know nothing of the Vicomte's
defection. Shall you, then, be the one to inform them
of it by your unbridled rantings and your accu-
sations?"

Her jaw fell open in astonishment. This was a side
of the question she had not considered.

"Let me prevail upon you, madame, to withdraw
and to be of good courage. It is more than likely that
you alarm yourself without cause."

She continued to stare at me in her amazement and
the confusion that was congenital with it, and if there
was not time for her to withdraw, at least the possibil-
ity I had suggested acted as a timely warning.

In that moment the door opened again, and on the
threshold appeared a young man in a plumed hat and
corselet, carrying a naked sword in one hand and a
lanthorn in the other. Behind him I caught the gleam
of steel from the troopers at his heels.

ii4 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

"Which of you is Monsieur Rene de Lesperon?" he
inquired politely, his utterance flavoured by a strong
Gascon accent.

I stood forward. " I am known by that name, Mon-
sieur le Capitaine," said I.

He looked at me wistfully, apologetically almost,
then —

" In the King's name, Monsieur de Lesperon, I call
upon you to yield!" said he.

"I have been expecting you. My sword is yonder,
monsieur," I replied suavely. " If you will allow me to
dress, I shall be ready to accompany you in a few
minutes."

He bowed, and it at once became clear that his
business at Lavedan was — as I had suggested to the
Vicomtesse might be possible — with me alone.

"I am grateful for the readiness of your submis-
sion," said this very polite gentleman. He was a
comely lad, with blue eyes and a good-humoured
mouth, to which a pair of bristling moustaches sought
vainly to impart an expression of ferocity.

"Before you proceed to dress, monsieur, I have an-
other duty to discharge."

"Discharge your duty, monsieur," I answered.
Whereupon he made a sign to his men, and in a
moment they were ransacking my garments and
effects. While this was taking place, he turned to the
Vicomte and Vicomtesse, and offered them a thousand
apologies for having interrupted their slumbers, and
for so rudely depriving them of their guest. He ad-
vanced in his excuse the troublous nature of the
times, and threw in a bunch of malisons at the cir-
cumstances which forced upon soldiers the odious

A NIGHT ALARM 115

duties of the tipstaff, hoping that we would think
him none the less a gentleman for the unsavoury
business upon which he was engaged.

From my clothes they took the letters addressed to
Lesperon which that poor gentleman had entrusted to
me on the night of his death; and among these there
was one from the Due d'Orleans himself, which would
alone have sufficed to have hanged a regiment. Be-
sides these, they took Monsieur de Marsac's letter of
two days ago, and the locket containing the picture
of Mademoiselle de Marsac.

The papers and the portrait they delivered to the
Captain, who took them with the same air of depreca-
tion tainted with disgust that coloured all his actions
in connection with my arrest.

To this same repugnance for his catchpoll work do
I owe it that at the moment of setting out he offered
to let me ride without the annoyance of an escort
if I would pass him my parole not to attempt an
escape.

We were standing, then, in the hall of the chateau.
His men were already in the courtyard, and there
were only present Monsieur le Vicomte and Anatole
— the latter reflecting the look of sorrow that haunted
his master's face. The Captain's generosity was
certainly leading him beyond the bounds of his
authority, and it touched me.

"Monsieur is very generous," said I.

He shrugged his shoulders impatiently.

" Cap de Diou ! " he cried — he had a way of swear-
ing that reminded me of my friend Cazalet. " It is no
generosity, monsieur. It is a desire to make this ob-
scene work more congenial to the spirit of a gentleman,

ii6 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

which, devil take me, I cannot stifle, not for the King
himself. And then, Monsieur de Lesperon, are we
not fellow-countrymen? Are we not Gascons both?
Pardieu, there is no more respected a name in the
whole of Gascon y than that of Lesperon, and that you
belong to so honourable a family is alone more than
sufficient to warrant such slight favours as it may be
in my power to show you/'

"You have my parole that I will attempt no escape,
Monsieur le Capitaine," I answered, bowing my
acknowledgment of his compliments.

" I am Mironsac de Castelroux, of Chateau Rouge
in Gascony," he informed me, returning my bow. My
faith, had he not made a pretty soldier he would have
made an admirable master of deportment.

My leave-taking of Monsieur de Lavedan was brief
but cordial; apologetic on my part, intensely sympa-
thetic on his. And so I went out alone with Castel-
roux upon the road to Toulouse, his men being ordered
to follow in half an hour's time and to travel at their
leisure.

As we cantered along — Castelroux and I — we
talked of many things, and I found him an amusing
and agreeable companion. Had my mood been other
than despairing, the news he gave me might have
occasioned me some concern; for it seemed that
prisoners arraigned for treason and participation in
the late rising were being very summarily treated.
Many were never so much as heard in their own de-
fence, the evidence collected of their defection being
submitted to the Tribunal, and judgment being forth-
with passed upon them by judges who had no ears for
anything they might advance in their own favour.

A NIGHT ALARM 117

The evidence of my identity was complete: there
was my own admission to Castelroux; the evidence of
the treason of Lesperon was none the less complete; in
fact, it was notorious; and there was the Duke's letter
found amongst my effects. If the judges refused to
lend an ear to my assurances that I was not Lesperon
at all, but the missing Bardelys, my troubles were
likely to receive a very summary solution. The fear of
it, however, weighed not over-heavily upon me. I was
supremely indifferent. Life was at an end so far as I
was concerned. I had ruined the one chance of real
happiness that had ever been held out to me, and if
the gentlemen of the courts of Toulouse were pleased
to send me unheeded to the scaffold, what should it
signify?

But there was another matter that did interest me,
and that was my interview with Marsac. Touching
this, I spoke to my captor.

"There is a gentleman I wish to see at Grenade this
morning. You have amongst the papers taken from
me a letter making this assignation, Monsieur le
Capitaine, and I should be indeed grateful if you
would determine that we shall break our fast there, so
that I may have an opportunity of seeing him. The
matter is to me of the highest importance."

"It concerns — ?" he asked.

"A lady," I answered.

"Ah, yes! But the letter is of the nature of a
challenge, is it not ? Naturally, I cannot permit you to
endanger your life."

" Lest we disappoint the headsman at Toulouse ? " I
laughed. "Have no fear. There shall be no duel, I
promise you."

ii8 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

"Then I am content, monsieur, and you shall see
your friend/'

I thanked him, and we talked of other things there-
after as we rode in the early morning along the Tou-
louse road. Our conversation found its way, I scarce
know how, to the topic of Paris and the Court, and
when I casually mentioned, in passing, that I was well
acquainted with the Luxembourg, he inquired whether
I had ever chanced to meet a young spark of the name
of Mironsac.

" Mironsac ? " I echoed. " Why, yes." And I was on
the point of adding that I knew the youth intimately,
and what a kindness I had for him, when, deeming it
imprudent, I contented myself with asking, "You
know him?"

"Pardiou!" he swore. "The fellow is my cousin.
We are both Mironsacs; he is Mironsac of Castelvert,
whilst I, as you may remember I told you, am Miron-
sac of Castelroux. To distinguish us, he is always
known as Mironsac, and I as Castelroux. Peste! It is
not the only distinction, for while he basks in the sun-
shine of the great world of Paris — they are wealthy,
the Mironsacs of Castelvert — I, a poor devil of a
Gascony cadet, am playing the catchpoll in Langue-
doc!"

I looked at him with fresh interest, for the mention
of that dear lad Mironsac brought back to my mind
the night in Paris on which my ill-starred wager had
been laid, and I was reminded of how that high-
minded youth had sought — when it was too late —
to reason me out of the undertaking by alluding to the
dishonour with which in his honest eyes it must be
fraught.

A NIGHT ALARM 119

We spoke of his cousin — Castelroux and I — and I
went so far now as to confess that I had some love for
the youth, whom I praised in unmistakable terms.
This inclined to increase the friendliness which my
young Captain had manifested since my arrest, and I
was presently emboldened by it to beg of him to add
to the many favours that I already owed him by re-
turning to me the portrait which his men had sub-
tracted from my pocket. It was my wish to return
this to Marsac, whilst at the same time it would afford
corroboration of my story.

To this Castelroux made no difficulty.

"Why, yes," said he, and he produced it. "I crave
your pardon for not having done the thing of my own
accord. What can the Keeper of the Seals want with
that picture?"

I thanked him, and pocketed the locket.

"Poor lady!" he sighed, a note of compassion in his
voice. " By my soul, Monsieur de Lesperon, fine work
this for soldiers, is it not ? Diable ! It is enough to turn
a gentleman's stomach sour for life, and make him
go hide himself from the eyes of honest men. Had I
known that soldiering meant such business, I had
thought twice before I adopted it as a career for a man
of honour. I had remained in Gascony and tilled the
earth sooner than have lent myself to this!"

" My good young friend," I laughed, "what you do,
you do in the King's name."

"So does every tipstaff," he answered impatiently,
his moustaches bristling as the result of the scornful
twist he gave his lips. "To think that I should have a
hand in bringing tears to the eyes of that sweet lady!
Quelle besogne! Bon Diou, quelle besogne!"

120 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

I laughed at the distress vented in that whimsical
Gascon tongue of his, whereupon he eyed me in a
wonder that was tempered with admiration. For to
his brave soul a gentleman so stoical as to laugh under
such parlous circumstances was very properly a gen-
tleman to be admired.

CHAPTER X
THE RISEN DEAD

IT was close upon ten o'clock as we rode into the
yard of the imposing Hotel de la Couronne at
Grenade.

Castelroux engaged a private room on the first floor
— a handsome chamber overlooking the courtyard —
and in answer to the inquiries that I made I was in-
formed by the landlord that Monsieur de Marsac was
not yet arrived.

"My assignation was * before noon/ Monsieur de
Castelroux," said I. "With your permission, I would
wait until noon."

He made no difficulty. Two hours were of no
account. We had all risen very early, and he was,
himself, he said, entitled to some rest.

Whilst I stood by the window it came to pass that
a very tall, indifferently apparelled gentleman issued
from the hostelry and halted for some moments in
conversation with the ostler below. He walked with
an enfeebled step, and leaned heavily for support
upon a stout cane. As he turned to reenter the inn I
had a glimpse of a face woefully pale, about which, as
about the man's whole figure, there was a something
that was familiar — a something that puzzled me, and
on which my mind was still dwelling when presently I
sat down to breakfast with Castelroux.

It may have been a half-hour later, and, our meal
being at an end, we were sitting talking — I growing

122 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

impatient the while that this Monsieur de Marsac
should keep me waiting so — when of a sudden the
rattle of hoofs drew me once more to the window. A
gentleman, riding very recklessly, had just dashed
through the porte-cochere, and was in the act of pull-
ing up his horse. He was a lean, active man, very
richly dressed, and with a face that by its swarthiness
of skin and the sable hue of beard and hair looked al-
most black.

"Ah, you are there!" he cried, with something be-
tween a snarl and a laugh, and addressing somebody
within the shelter of the porch. " Par la mort Dieu, I
had hardly looked to find you!"

From the recess of the doorway I heard a gasp of
amazement and a cry of —

"Marsac! You here?"

So this was the gentleman I was to see! A stable-
boy had taken his reins, and he leapt nimbly to the
ground. Into my range of vision hobbled now the en-
feebled gentleman whom earlier I had noticed.

"My dear Stanislas!" he cried, "I cannot tell you
how rejoiced I am to see you!" and he approached
Marsac with arms that were opened as if to embrace
him.

The newcomer surveyed him a moment in wonder,
with eyes grown dull. Then abruptly raising his
hand, he struck the fellow on the breast, and thrust
him back so violently that but for the stable-boy's
intervention he had of a certainty fallen. With a look
of startled amazement on his haggard face, the invalid
regarded his assailant.

As for Marsac, he stepped close up to him.

"What is this?" he cried harshly. "What is this

THE RISEN DEAD 123

make-believe feebleness ? That you are pale, poltroon,
I do not wonder! But why these tottering limbs?
Why this assumption of weakness ? Do you look to
trick me by these signs?"

"Have you taken leave of your senses?" exclaimed
the other, a note of responsive anger sounding in his
voice. "Have you gone mad, Stanislas?"

"Abandon this pretence," was the contemptuous
answer. "Two days ago at Lavedan, my friend, they
informed me how complete was your recovery; from
what they told us, it was easy to guess why you
tarried there and left us without news of you. That
was my reason, as you may have surmised, for writing
to you. My sister has mourned you for dead — was
mourning you for dead whilst you sat at the feet of
your Roxalanne and made love to her among the roses
of Lavedan."

" Lavedan ?'* echoed the other slowly. Then, rais-
ing his voice: "What the devil are you saying?" he
blazed. "What do I know of Lavedan?"

In a flash it had come to me who that enfeebled
gentleman was. Rodenard, the blunderer, had been
at fault when he had said that Lesperon had expired.
Clearly he could have no more than swooned; for here,
in the flesh, was Lesperon himself, the man I had left
for dead in that barn by Mirepoix.

How or where he had recovered were things that at
the moment did not exercise my mind — nor have I
since been at any pains to unravel the mystery of it;
but there he was, and for the moment that fact was
all-sufficing. What complications would come of his
presence Heaven alone could foretell.

"Put an end to this play-acting!" roared the savage

124 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

Marsac. " It will avail you nothing. My sister's tears
may have weighed lightly with you, but you shall pay
the price of them, and of the slight you have put upon
her."

"My God, Marsac!" cried the other, roused to an
equal fierceness. "Will you explain?"

"Aye," snarled Marsac, and his sword flashed from
his scabbard, "I'll explain. As God lives, I'll explain
— with this!" And he whirled his blade under the
eyes of the invalid. " Come, my master, the comedy's
played out. Cast aside that crutch and draw; draw,
man, or, sangdieu, I'll run you through as you stand! "

There was a commotion below. The landlord and a
posse of his satellites — waiters, ostlers, and stable-
boys — rushed between them, and sought to restrain
the bloodthirsty Marsac. But he shook them off as a
bull shakes off a pack of dogs, and like an angry bull,
too, did he stand his ground and bellow. In a moment
his sweeping sword had cleared a circle about him. In
its lightning dartings hither and thither at random,
it had stung a waiter in the calf, and when the fellow
saw the blood staining his hose, he added to the
general din his shrieks that he was murdered. Marsac
swore and threatened in a breath, and a kitchen-
wench, from a point of vantage on the steps, called
shame upon him and abused him roundly for a
cowardly assassin to assail a poor sufferer who could
hardly stand upright.

"Po* Cap de Diou!" swore Castelroux at my elbow.
" Saw you ever such an ado ? What has chanced ? "

But I never stayed to answer him. Unless I acted
quickly blood would assuredly be shed. I was the one
man who could explain matters, and it was a mercy

THE RISEN DEAD 125

for Lesperon that I should have been at hand in the
hour of his meeting that fire-eater Marsac. I forgot
the circumstances in which I stood to Castelroux; I
forgot everything but the imminent necessity that I
should intervene. Some seven feet below our window
was the roof of the porch; from that to the ground it
might be some eight feet more. Before my Gascon
captain knew what I was about, I had swung myself
down from the window on to the projecting porch. A
second later, I created a diversion by landing in the
midst of the courtyard fray, with the alarmed Castel-
roux — who imagined that I was escaping — follow-
ing by the same unusual road, and shouting as he
came —

"Monsieur de Lesperon! Hi! Monsieur de Les-
peron! Mordiou! Remember your parole, Monsieur
de Lesperon!"

Nothing could have been better calculated to stem
Marsac's fury; nothing could have so predisposed him
to lend an ear to what I had to say, for it was very
evident that Castelroux's words were addressed to
me, and that it was I whom he called by the name of
Lesperon. In an instant I was at Marsac's side. But
before I could utter a word —

"What the devil does this mean?" he asked, eyeing
me with fierce suspicion.

" It means, monsieur, that there are more Lesperons
than one in France. I am the Lesperon who was at
Lavedan. If you doubt me, ask this gentleman, who
arrested me there last night. Ask him, too, why we
have halted here. Ask him, if you will, to show you
the letter that you left at Lavedan making an assigna-
tion here before noon to-day, which letter I received."

126 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

The suspicion faded from Marsac's eyes, and they
grew round with wonder as he listened to this pro-
digious array of evidence. Lesperon looked on in no
less amazement, yet I am sure from the manner of his
glance that he did not recognize in me the man that
had succoured him at Mirepoix. That, after all, was
natural enough; for the minds of men in such reduced
conditions as had been his upon that night are not
prone to receive very clear impressions, and still less
prone to retain such impressions as they do receive.

Before Marsac could answer me, Castelroux was at
my side.

"A thousand apologies!" he laughed. "A fool
might have guessed the errand that took you so
quickly through that window, and none but a fool
would have suspected you of seeking to escape. It
was unworthy in me, Monsieur de Lesperon."

I turned to him while those others still stood gap-
ing, and led him aside.

"Monsieur le Capitaine," said I, "you find it
troublesome enough to reconcile your conscience with
such arrests as you are charged to make, is it not
so?"

"Mordiou!" he cried, by way of emphatically
assenting.

"Now, if you should chance to overhear words be-
traying to you certain people whom otherwise you
would never suspect of being rebels, your soldier's
duty would, nevertheless, compel you to apprehend
them, would it not?"

"Why, true. I am afraid it would," he answered,
with a grimace.

"But, if forewarned that by being present in a

THE RISEN DEAD 127

certain place you should overhear such words, what
course would you pursue?"

"Avoid it like a pestilence, monsieur," he answered
promptly.

"Then, Monsieur le Capitaine, may I trespass upon
your generosity to beseech you to let me take these
litigants to our room upstairs, and to leave us alone
there for a half-hour?"

Frankness was my best friend in dealing with
Castelroux — frankness and his distaste for the busi-
ness they had charged him with. As for Marsac and
Lesperon, they were both eager enough to have the
mystery explained, and when — Castelroux having
consented — I invited them to my chamber, they
came readily enough.

Since Monsieur de Lesperon did not recognize me,
there was no reason why I should enlighten him
touching my identity, and every reason why I should
not. As soon as they were seated, I went to the heart
of the matter at once and without preamble.

"A fortnight ago, gentlemen," said I, "I was driven
by a pack of dragoons across the Garonne. I was
wounded in the shoulder and very exhausted, and I
knocked at the gates of Lavedan to crave shelter.
That shelter, gentlemen, was afforded me, and when I
had announced myself as Monsieur de Lesperon, it
was all the more cordially because one Monsieur de
Marsac, who was a friend of the Vicomte de Lavedan,
and a partisan in the lost cause of Orleans, happened
often to have spoken of a certain Monsieur de Les-
peron as his very dear friend. I have no doubt, gentle-
men, that you will think harshly of me because I did
not enlighten the Vicomte. But there were reasons

128 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

for which I trust you will not press me, since I shall
find it difficult to answer you with truth."

"But is your name Lesperon?" cried Lesperon.

"That, monsieur, is a small matter. Whether my
name is Lesperon or not, I confess to having practised
a duplicity upon the Vicomte and his family, since
I am certainly not the Lesperon whose identity I
accepted. But if I accepted that identity, monsieur, I
also accepted your liabilities, and so I think that you
should find it in your heart to extend me some meas-
ure of forgiveness. As Rene de Lesperon, of Lesperon
in Gascony, I was arrested last night at Lavedan, and,
as you may observe, I am being taken to Toulouse to
stand the charge of high treason. I have not demurred;
I have not denied in the hour of trouble the identity
that served me in my hour of need. I am taking the
bitter with the sweet, and I assure you, gentlemen,
that the bitter predominates in a very marked degree."

" But this must not be," cried Lesperon, rising. " I
know not what use you may have made of my name,
but I have no reason to think that you can have
brought discredit upon it, and so — "

"I thank you, monsieur, but — "

"And so I cannot submit that you shall go to Tou-
louse in my stead. Where is this officer whose prisoner
you are? Pray summon him, monsieur, and let us set
the matter right."

"This is very generous," I answered calmly. "But
I have crimes enough upon my head, and so, if the
worst should befall me, I am simply atoning in one
person for the errors of two."

"But that is no concern of mine!" he cried.

" It is so much your concern that if you commit so

THE RISEN DEAD 129

egregious a blunder as to denounce yourself, you will
have ruined yourself, without materially benefiting
me."

He still objected, but in this strain I argued for
some time, and to such good purpose that in the end I
made him realize that by betraying himself he would
not save me, but only join me on the journey to the
scaffold.

"Besides, gentlemen," I pursued, "my case is far
from hopeless. I have every confidence that, as
matters stand, by putting forth my hand at the right
moment, by announcing my identity at the proper
season, I can, if am so inclined, save my neck from the
headsman."

"If you are so inclined?" they both cried, their
looks charged with inquiry.

"Let that be," I answered; "it does not at present
concern us. What I desire you to understand, Mon-
sieur de Lesperon, is that if I go to Toulouse alone,
when the time comes to proclaim myself, and it is
found that I am not Rene de Lesperon, of Lesperon in
Gascony, they will assume that you are dead, and
there will be no count against me.

" But if you come with me, and thereby afford proof
that you are alive, my impersonation of you may
cause me trouble. They may opine that I have been
an abettor of treason, that I have attempted to
circumvent the ends of justice, and that I may have
impersonated you in order to render possible your
escape. For that, you may rest assured, they will
punish me.

"You will see, therefore, that my own safety rests
on your passing quietly out of France and leaving the

130 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

belief behind you that you are dead — a belief that
will quickly spread once I shall have cast off your
identity. You apprehend me?"

"Vaguely, monsieur; and perhaps you are right.
What do you say, Stanislas? "

"Say?" cried the fiery Marsac. "I am weighed
down with shame, my poor Rene, for having so mis-
judged you."

More he would have said in the same strain, but
Lesperon cut him short and bade him attend to the
issue now before him. They discussed it at some
length, but always under the cloud in which my
mysteriousness enveloped it, and, in the end, en-
couraged by my renewed assurances that I could best
save myself if Lesperon were not taken with me, the
Gascon consented to my proposals.

Marsac was on his way to Spain. His sister, he told
us, awaited him at Carcassonne. Lesperon should set
out with him at once, and in forty-eight hours they
would be beyond the reach of the King's anger.

" I have a favour to ask of you, Monsieur de Mar-
sac," said I, rising; for our business was at an end.
"It is that if you should have an opportunity of
communicating with Mademoiselle de Lavedan, you
will let her know that I am not — not the Lesperon
that is betrothed to your sister."

"I will inform her of it, monsieur," he answered
readily; and then, of a sudden, a look of understand-
ing and of infinite pity came into his eyes. "My
God! "he cried.

"What is it, monsieur?" I asked, staggered by
that sudden outcry.

" Do not ask me, monsieur, do not ask me. I had

THE RISEN DEAD 131

forgotten for the moment, in the excitement of all
these revelations. But — " He stopped short.

"Well, monsieur ?"

He seemed to ponder a moment, then looking at me
again with that same compassionate glance —

"You had better know/' said he. "And yet — it is
a difficult thing to tell you. I understand now much
that I had not dreamt of. You — you have no
suspicion of how you came to be arrested?"

" For my alleged participation in the late rebellion ? "

" Yes, yes. But who gave the information of your
whereabouts? Who told the Keeper of the Seals
where you were to be found?"

"Oh, that?" I answered easily. "Why, I never
doubted it. It was the coxcomb Saint-Eustache. I
whipped him — "

I stopped short. There was something in Marsac's
black face, something in his glance, that forced the
unspoken truth upon my mind.

"Mother in heaven!" I cried. " Do you mean that
it was Mademoiselle de Lavedan?"

He bowed his head in silence. Did she hate me,
then, so much as that? Would nothing less than my
death appease her, and had I utterly crushed the love
that for a little while she had borne me, that she could
bring herself to hand me over the headsman?

God ! What a stab was that ! It turned me sick with
grief — aye, and with some rage — not against her,
oh, not against her; against the fates that had brought
such things to pass.

I controlled myself while their eyes were yet upon
me. I went to the door and held it open for them, and
they, perceiving something of my disorder, were

132 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

courteous enough to omit the protracted leave-takings
that under other auspices there might have been.
Marsac paused a moment on the threshold as if he
would have offered me some word of comfort. Then,
perceiving, perhaps, how banal must be all comfort
that was of words alone, and how it might but in-
crease the anger of the wound it was meant to balm,
he sighed a simple "Adieu, monsieur!" and went his
way.

When they were gone, I returned to the table, and,
sitting down, I buried my head in my arms, and there
I lay, a prey to the most poignant grief that in all my
easy, fortunate life I had ever known. That she should
have done this thing! That the woman I loved, the
pure, sweet, innocent girl that I had wooed so ardently
in my unworthiness at Lavedan, should have stooped
to such an act of betrayal ! To what had I not reduced
her, since such things could be!

Then, out of my despair grew comfort, slowly at
first, and more vigorously anon. The sudden shock of
the news had robbed me of some of my wit, and had
warped my reasoning. Later, as the pain of the blow
grew duller, I came to reflect that what she had done
was but a proof — an overwhelming proof — of how
deeply she had cared. Such hatred as this can be but
born of a great love; reaction is ever to be measured
by the action that occasions it, and a great revulsion
can only come of a great affection. Had she been in-
different to me, or had she but entertained for me a
passing liking, she would not have suffered so.

And so I came to realize how cruel must have been
the pang that had driven her to this. But she had
loved me; aye, and she loved me still, for all that she

THE RISEN DEAD 133

thought she hated, and for all that she had acted as if
she hated. But even if I were wrong — even if she did
hate me — what a fresh revulsion would not be hers
when anon she learnt that — whatever my sins — I
had not played lightly with her love; that I was not,
as she had imagined, the betrothed of another woman!

The thought fired me like wine. I was no longer
listless — no longer indifferent as to whether I lived
or died. I must live. I must enlighten the Keeper of
the Seals and the judges at Toulouse concerning my
identity. Why, indeed, had I ever wavered? Bardelys
the Magnificent must come to life again, and then —
What then?

As suddenly as I had been exalted was I cast down.
There was a rumour abroad that Bardelys was dead.
In the wake of that rumour I shrewdly guessed that
the report of the wager that had brought him into
Languedoc would not be slow to follow. What then ?
Would she love me any the better ? Would she hate me
any the less? If now she was wounded by the belief
that I had made sport of her love, would not that
same belief be with her again when she came to know
the truth?

Aye, the tangle was a grievous one. Yet I took
heart. My old resolve returned to me, and I saw the
need for urgency — in that alone could lie now my re-
demption in her eyes. My wager must be paid before
I again repaired to her, for all that it should leave me
poor indeed. In the mean while, I prayed God that
she might not hear of it ere I returned to tell her.

CHAPTER XI

THE KING'S COMMISSIONER

|X)R that most amiable of Gascon cadets, Mon-
J/ sieur de Castelroux, I have naught but the highest
praise. In his every dealing with me he revealed him-
self so very gallant, generous, and high-minded a
gentleman that it was little short of a pleasure to be his
prisoner. He made no inquiries touching the nature
of my interview with those two gentlemen at the
Hotel de la Couronne, and when at the moment of
leaving I requested him to deliver a packet to the
taller of those same two he did so without comment
or question. That packet contained the portrait of
Mademoiselle de Marsac, but on the inner wrapper
was a note requesting Lesperon not to open it until he
should be in Spain.

Neither Marsac nor Lesperon did I see again before
we resumed our journey to Toulouse.

At the moment of setting out a curious incident
occurred. Castelroux's company of dragoons had
ridden into the courtyard as we were mounting. They
lined up under their lieutenant's command, to allow
us to pass; but as we reached the porte-cochere we
were delayed for a moment by a travelling-carriage,
entering for relays, and coming, apparently, from
Toulouse. Castelroux and I backed our horses until we
were in the midst of the dragoons, and so we stood
while the vehicle passed in. As it went by, one of the
leather curtains was drawn back, and my heart was

THE KING'S COMMISSIONER 135

quickened by the sight of a pale girl face, with eyes of
blue, and brown curls lying upon the slender neck.
Her glance lighted on me, swordless and in the midst
of that company of troopers, and I bowed low upon the
withers of my horse, doffing my hat in distant sal-
utation.

The curtain dropped again, and eclipsed the face of
the woman that had betrayed me. With my mind full
of wild surmisings as to what emotions might have
awakened in her upon beholding me, I rode away in
silence at Monsieur de Castelroux's side. Had she
experienced any remorse? Any shame? Whether or
not such feelings had been aroused at sight of me, it
certainly would not be long ere she experienced them,
for at the Hotel de la Couronne were those who would
enlighten her.

The contemplation of the remorseful grief that
might anon beset her when she came to ponder the
truth of matters, and, with that truth, those things
that at Lavedan I had uttered, filled me presently
with regret and pity. I grew impatient to reach Tou-
louse and tell the judges of the mistake that there had
been. My name could not be unknown to them, and
the very mention of it, I thought, should suffice to
give them pause and lead them to make inquiries be-
fore sending me to the scaffold. Yet I was not with-
out uneasiness, for the summariness with which
Castelroux had informed me they were in the habit of
dealing with those accused of high treason occasioned
me some apprehensive pangs.

This apprehension led me to converse with my
captor touching those trials, seeking to gather from
him who were the judges. I learnt then that besides

136 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

the ordinary Tribunal, a Commissioner had been
dispatched by His Majesty, and was hourly expected
to arrive at Toulouse. It would be his mission to
supervise and direct the inquiries that were taking
place. It was said, he added, that the King himself
was on his way thither, to be present at the trial
of Monsieur le Due de Montmorency. But he was
travelling by easy stages, and was not yet expected
for some days. My heart, which had leapt at the
news, as suddenly sank again with the consideration
that I should probably be disposed of before the King's
arrival. It would behove me, therefore, to look else-
where for help and for some one to swear to my
identity.

"Do you know the name of this King's Com-
missioner?" I asked.

"It is a certain Comte de Chatellerault, a gentfe-
man said to stand very high in His Majesty's favour."

"Chatellerault!" I cried in wondering joy.

"You know him?"

" Most excellently ! " I laughed. "We are very inti-
mately acquainted."

"Why, then, monsieur, I augur you this gentleman's
friendship, and that it may pilot you through your
trouble. Although — " Being mercifully minded, he
stopped short.

But I laughed easily. " Indeed, my dear Captain, I
think it will," said I; "although friendship in this
world is a thing of which the unfortunate know little."

But I rejoiced too soon, as you shall hear.

We rode diligently on, our way lying along the fertile
banks of the Garonne, now yellow with the rustling
corn. Towards evening we made our last halt at

THE KING'S COMMISSIONER 137

Fenouillet, whence a couple of hours' riding should
bring us to Toulouse.

At the post-house we overtook a carriage that
seemingly had halted for relays, but upon which I
scarce bestowed a glance as I alighted.

Whilst Castelroux went to arrange for fresh horses,
I strode into the common room, and there for some
moments I stood discussing the viands with our host.
When at last I had resolved that a cold pasty and a
bottle of Armagnac would satisfy our wants, I looked
about me to take survey of those in the room. One
group in a remote corner suddenly riveted my atten-
tion to such a degree that I remained deaf to the voice
of Castelroux, who had just entered, and who stood
now beside me. In the centre of this group was the
Comte de Chatellerault himself, a thick-set, sombre
figure, dressed with that funereal magnificence he
affected.

But it was not the sight of him that filled me with
amazement. For that, Castelroux's information had
prepared me, and I well understood in what capacity
he was there. My surprise sprang rather from the
fact that amongst the half-dozen gentlemen about
him — and evidently in attendance — I beheld the
Chevalier de Saint-Eustache. Now, knowing as I did,
the Chevalier's treasonable leanings, there was ample
cause for my astonishment at finding him in such
company. Apparently, too, he was on very intimate
terms with the Count, for in raising my glance I had
caught him in the act of leaning over to whisper
familiarly in Chatellerault's ear.

Their eyes — indeed, for that matter the eyes of
the entire company — were turned in my direction.

138 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

Perhaps it was not a surprising thing that Chatelle-
rault should gaze upon me in that curious fashion, for
was it not probable that he had heard that I was dead ?
Besides, the fact that I was without a sword, and that
at my side stood a King's officer, afforded evidence
enough of my condition, and well might Chatellerault
stare at beholding me so manifestly a prisoner.

Even as I watched him, he appeared to start at
something that Saint-Eustache was saying, and a
curious change spread over his face. Its whilom
expression had been rather one of dismay; for, having
believed me dead, he no doubt accounted his wager
won, whereas seeing me alive had destroyed that
pleasant conviction. But now it took on a look of
relief and of something that suggested malicious
cunning.

"That," said Castelroux in my ear, "is the King's
commissioner."

Did I not know it? I never waited to answer him,
but, striding across the room, I held out my hand —
over the table — to Chatellerault.

"My dear Comte," I cried, "you are most choicely

met.'1

I would have added more, but there was something
in his attitude that silenced me. He had turned half
from me, and stood now, hand on hip, his great head
thrown back and tilted towards his shoulder, his
expression one of freezing and disdainful wonder.

Now, if his attitude filled me with astonishment
and apprehension, consider how these feelings were
heightened by his words.

"Monsieur de Lesperon, I can but express amaze-
ment at your effrontery. If we have been acquainted

THE KING'S COMMISSIONER 139

in the past, do you think that is a sufficient reason for
me to take your hand now that you have placed your-
self in a position which renders it impossible for His
Majesty's loyal servants to know you?"

I fell back a pace, my mind scarce grasping yet the
depths of this inexplicable attitude.

"This to me, Chatellerault?" I gasped.

"To you?" he blazed, stirred to a sudden pas-
sion. "What else did you expect, Monsieur de
Lesperon?"

I had it in me to give him the lie, to denounce him
then for a low, swindling trickster. I understood all
at once the meaning of this wondrous make-believe.
From Saint-Eustache he had gathered the mistake
there was, and for his wager's sake he would let the
error prevail, and hurry me to the scaffold. What else
might I have expected from the man that had lured
me into such a wager — a wager which the knowledge
he possessed had made him certain of winning?
Would he who had cheated at the dealing of the
cards neglect an opportunity to cheat again during
the progress of the game ?

As I have said, I had it in my mind to cry out that
he lied — that I was not Lesperon — that he knew I
was Bardelys. But the futility of such an outcry came
to me simultaneously with the thought of it. And, I
fear me, I stood before him and his satellites — the
mocking Saint-Eustache amongst them — a very
foolish figure.

"There is no more to be said," I murmured at last.

"But there is!" he retorted. "There is much more
to be said. You shall render yet an account of your
treason, and I am afraid, my poor rebel, that your

i4o BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

comely head will part company with your shapely
body. You and I will meet at Toulouse. What more
is to be said will be said in the Tribunal there.'*

A chill encompassed me. I was doomed, it seemed.
This man, ruling the province pending the King's
arrival, would see to it that none came forward to
recognize me. He would expedite the comedy of my
trial, and close it with the tragedy of my execution.
My professions of a mistake of identity — if I wasted
breath upon them — would be treated with disdain
and disregarded utterly. God! What a position had I
got myself into, and what a vein of comedy ran through
it — grim, tragic comedy, if you will, yet comedy in
all faith. The very woman whom I had wagered to
wed had betrayed me into the hands of the very man
with whom I laid my wager.

But there was more in it than that. As I had told
Mironsac that night in Paris, when the thing had been
initiated, it was a duel that was being fought betwixt
Chatellerault and me — a duel for supremacy in the
King's good graces. We were rivals, and he desired my
removal from the Court. To this end had he lured me
into a bargain that should result in my financial ruin,
thereby compelling me to withdraw from the costly
life of the Luxembourg, and leaving him supreme, the
sole and uncontested recipient of our master's favour.
Now into his hand Fate had thrust a stouter weapon
and a deadlier: a weapon which not only should make
him master of the wealth that I had pledged, but one
whereby he might remove me for all time, a thousand-
fold more effectively than the mere encompassing of
my ruin would have done.

I was doomed. I realized it fully and very bitterly.

THE KING'S COMMISSIONER 141

I was to go out of the ways of men unnoticed and un-
mourned; as a rebel, under the obscure name of an-
other and bearing another's sins upon my shoulders, I
was to pass almost unheeded to the gallows. Bardelys
the Magnificent — the Marquis Marcel Saint-Pol de
Bardelys, whose splendour had been a byword in
France — was to go out like a guttering candle.

The thought filled me with the awful frenzy that so
often goes with impotency — such a frenzy as the
damned in hell may know. I forgot in that hour my
precept that under no conditions should a gentleman
give way to anger. In a blind access of fury I flung
myself across the table and caught that villainous
cheat by the throat, before any there could put out a
hand to stop me.

He was a heavy man, if a short one, and the
strength of his thick-set frame was a thing abnormal.
Yet at that moment such nervous power did I gather
from my rage, that I swung him from his feet as though
he had been the puniest weakling. I dragged him down
on to the table, and there I ground his face with a
most excellent good-will and relish.

" You liar, you cheat, you thief!" I snarled like any
cross-grained mongrel. "The King shall hear of this,
you knave! By God, he shall!"

They dragged me from him at last — those lapdogs
that attended him — and with much rough handling
they sent me sprawling among the sawdust on the
floor. It is more than likely that but for Castelroux's
intervention they had made short work of me there
and then.

But with a bunch of Mordious, Sangdious, and Po'
Cap de Dious, the little Gascon flung himself before

I42 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

my prostrate figure, and bade them in the King's
name, and at their peril, to stand back.

Chatellerault, sorely shaken, his face purple, and
with blood streaming from his nostrils, had sunk into
a chair. He rose now, and his first words were in-
coherent, raging gasps.

"What is your name, sir?*' he bellowed at last,
addressing the Captain.

"Amedee de Mironsac de Castelroux, of Chateau
Rouge in Gascony," answered my captor, with a
grand manner and a flourish, and added, "Your
servant."

"What authority have you to allow your prisoners '
this degree of freedom?"

"I do not need authority, monsieur," replied the
Gascon.

"Do you not?" blazed the Count. "We shall see.
Wait until I am in Toulouse, my malapert friend."

Castelroux drew himself up, straight as a rapier, his
face slightly flushed and his glance angry, yet he had
the presence of mind to restrain himself, partly at
least.

"I have my orders from the Keeper of the Seals to
effect the apprehension of Monsieur de Lesperon, and
to deliver him up, alive or dead, at Toulouse. So that
I do this, the manner of it is my own affair, and who
presumes to criticize my methods censoriously im-
pugns my honour and affronts me. And who affronts
me, monsieur, be he whosoever he may be, renders
me satisfaction. I beg that you will bear that circum-
stance in mind."

His moustaches bristled as he spoke, and altogether
his air was very fierce and truculent. For a moment I

THE KING'S COMMISSIONER 143

trembled for him. But the Count evidently thought
better of it than to provoke a quarrel, particularly one
in which he would be manifestly in the wrong, King's
Commissioner though he might be. There was an
exchange of questionable compliments betwixt the
officer and the Count, whereafter, to avoid further un-
pleasantness, Castelroux conducted me to a private
room, where we took our meal in gloomy silence.

It was not until an hour later, when we were again
in the saddle and upon the last stage of our jour-
ney, that I offered Castelroux an explanation of my
seemingly mad attack upon Chatellerault.

"You have done a very rash and unwise thing,
monsieur," he had commented regretfully, and it was
in answer to this that I poured out the whole story. I
had determined upon this course while we were sup-
ping, for Castelroux was now my only hope, and as
we rode beneath the stars of that September night I
made known to him my true identity.

I told him that Chatellerault knew me, and I in-
formed him that a wager lay between us — withhold-
ing the particulars of its nature — which had brought
me into Languedoc and into the position wherein he
had found and arrested me. At first he hesitated to
believe me, but when at last I had convinced him by
the vehemence of my assurances as much as by the
assurances themselves, he expressed such opinions of
the Comte de Chatellerault as made my heart go out
to him.

"You see, my dear Castelroux, that you are now my
last hope," I said.

"A forlorn one, my poor gentleman!" he groaned.

"Nay, that need not be. My intendant Rodenard

144 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

and some twenty of my servants should be somewhere
betwixt this and Paris. Let them be sought for, mon-
sieur, and let us pray God that they be still in Langue-
doc and may be found in time."

"It shall be done, monsieur, I promise you," he
answered me solemnly. "But I implore you not to
hope too much from it. Chatellerault has it in his
power to act promptly, and you may depend that he
will waste no time after what has passed."

"Still, we may have two or three days, and in those
days you must do what you can, my friend."

"You may depend upon me," he promised.

"And meanwhile, Castelroux," said I, "you will
say no word of this to any one."

That assurance also he gave me, and presently the
lights of our destination gleamed out to greet us.

That night I lay in a dank and gloomy cell of the
prison of Toulouse, with never a hope to bear me
company during those dark, wakeful hours.

A dull rage was in my soul as I thought of my
position, for it had not needed Castelroux's recom-
mendation to restrain me from building false hopes
upon his chances of finding Rodenard and my followers
in time to save me. Some little ray of consolation I
culled, perhaps, from my thoughts of Roxalanne. Out
of the gloom of my cell my fancy fashioned her sweet
girl face and stamped it with a look of gentle pity, of
infinite sorrow for me and for the hand she had had in
bringing me to this.

That she loved me I was assured, and I swore that if
I lived I would win her yet, in spite of every obstacle
that I myself had raised for my undoing.

CHAPTER XII
THE TRIBUNAL OF TOULOUSE

I HAD hoped to lie some days in prison before being
brought to trial, and that during those days Castel-
roux might have succeeded in discovering those who
could witness to my identity. Conceive, therefore,
something of my dismay when on the morrow I was
summoned at an hour before noon to go present my-
self to my judges.

From the prison to the Palace I was taken in chains
like any thief — for the law demanded this indignity
to be borne by one charged with the crimes they im-
puted to me. The distance was but short, yet I found
it over-long, which is not wonderful considering that
the people stopped to line up as I went by and to cast
upon me a shower of opprobrious derision — for
Toulouse was a very faithful and loyal city. It was
within some two hundred yards of the Palace steps
that I suddenly beheld a face in the crowd, at the
sight of which I stood still in my amazement. This
earned me a stab in the back from the butt-end of the
pike of one of my guards.

"What ails you now?" quoth the man irritably.
"Forward, Monsieur le traitre!"

I moved on, scarce remarking the fellow's rough-
ness; my eyes were still upon that face — the white,
piteous face of Roxalanne. I smiled reassurance and
encouragement, but even as I smiled the horror in her
countenance seemed to increase. Then, as I passed on,

146 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

she vanished from my sight, and I was left to con-
jecture the motives that had occasioned her return
to Toulouse. Had the message that Marsac would
yesterday have conveyed to her caused her to retrace
her steps that she might be near me in my extremity;
or had some weightier reason influenced her return?
Did she hope to undo some of the evil she had done?
Alas, poor child! If such were her hopes, I sorely
feared me they would prove very idle.

Of my trial I should say but little did not the
exigencies of my story render it necessary to say much.
Even now, across the gap of years, my gorge rises at
the mockery which, in the King's name, those gentle-
men made of justice. I can allow for the troubled
conditions of the times, and I can realize how in cases
of civil disturbances and rebellion it may be expedient
to deal summarily with traitors, yet not all the allow-
ances that I can think of would suffice to condone the
methods of that tribunal.

The trial was conducted in private by the Keeper of
the Seals — a lean, wizened individual, with an air as
musty and dry as that of the parchments among which
he had spent his days. He was supported by six
judges, and on his right sat the King's Commissioner,
Monsieur de Chatellerault — the bruised condition
of whose countenance still advertised the fact that
we had met but yesterday.

Upon being asked my name and place of abode, I
created some commotion by answering boldly —

"I am the Sieur Marcel de Saint-Pol, Marquis of
Bardelys, of Bardelys in Picardy."

The President — that is to say, the Keeper of the
Seals — turned inquiringly to Chatellerault. The

THE TRIBUNAL OF TOULOUSE 147

Count, however, did no more than smile and point to
something written on a paper that lay spread upon the
table. The President nodded.

" Monsieur Rene de Lesperon," said he, " the Court
may perhaps not be able to discriminate whether this
statement of yours is a deliberate attempt to misguide
or frustrate the ends of justice, or whether, either in
consequence of your wounds or as a visitation of God
for your treason, you are the victim of a deplorable
hallucination. But the Court wishes you to under-
stand that it is satisfied of your identity. The papers
found upon your person at the time of your arrest, be-
sides other evidence in our power, remove all possi-
bility of doubt in that connection. Therefore, in your
own interests, we implore you to abandon these false
statements, .if so be that you are master of your wits.
Your only hope of saving your head must lie in your
truthfully answering our questions, and even then,
Monsieur de Lesperon, the hope that we hold out to
you is so slight as to be no hope at all."

There was a pause, during which the other judges
nodded their heads in sage approval of their President's
words. For myself, I kept silent, perceiving how little
it could avail me to continue to protest, and awaited
his next question.

"You were arrested, monsieur, at the Chateau de
Lavedan two nights ago by a company of dragoons
under the command of Captain de Castelroux. Is that
so?"

"It is so, monsieur."

"And at the time of your arrest, upon being appre-
hended as Rene de Lesperon, you offered no repudia-
tion of the identity; on the contrary, when Monsieur

148 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

de Castelroux called for Monsieur de Lesperon, you
stepped forward and acknowledged that you were he."

"Pardon, monsieur. What I acknowledged was
that I was known by that name."

The President chuckled evilly, and his satellites
smiled in polite reflection of his mood.

"This acute differentiating is peculiar, Monsieur de
Lesperon, to persons of unsound mental condition,"
said he. "I am afraid that it will serve little purpose.
A man is generally known by his name, is he not?" I
did not answer him. "Shall we call Monsieur de
Castelroux to confirm what I have said?"

"It is not necessary. Since you allow that I may
have said I was known by the name, but refuse to
recognize the distinction between that and a state-
ment that 'Lesperon' is my name, it would serve no
purpose to summon the Captain."

The President nodded, and with that the point was
dismissed, and he proceeded as calmly as though
there never had been any question of my identity.

"You are charged, Monsieur de Lesperon, with
high treason in its most virulent and malignant form.
You are accused of having borne arms against His
Majesty. Have you anything to say?"

"I have to say that it is false, monsieur; that His
Majesty has no more faithful or loving subject than
am I."

The President shrugged his shoulders, and a shade
of annoyance crossed his face.

"If you are come here for no other purpose than to
deny the statements that I make, I am afraid that we
are but wasting time," he cried testily. " If you desire
it, I can summon Monsieur de Castelroux to swear

THE TRIBUNAL OF TOULOUSE 149

that at the time of your arrest and upon being charged
with the crime you made no repudiation of that
charge."

"Naturally not, monsieur," I cried, somewhat
heated by this seemingly studied ignoring of im-
portant facts, "because I realized that it was Mon-
sieur de Castelroux's mission to arrest and not to
judge me. Monsieur de Castelroux was an officer, not
a Tribunal, and to have denied this or that to him
would have been so much waste of breath."

"Ah! Very nimble; very nimble, in truth, Mon-
sieur de Lesperon, but scarcely convincing. We will
proceed. You are charged with having taken part
in several of the skirmishes against the armies of
Marshals de Schomberg and La Force, and finally,
with having been in close attendance upon Monsieur
de Montmorency at the battle of Castelnaudary.
What have you to say ? "

"That it is utterly untrue."

"Yet your name, monsieur, is on a list found among
the papers in the captured baggage of Monsieur le
Due de Montmorency."

"No, monsieur," I denied stoutly, "it is not."

The President smote the table a blow that scattered
a flight of papers.

"Par la mort Dieu!" he roared, with a most in-
decent exhibition of temper in one so placed. " I have
had enough of your contradictions. You forget, mon-
sieur, your position — "

"At least," I broke in harshly, "no less than you
forget yours."

The Keeper of the Seals gasped for breath at that,
and his fellow-judges murmured angrily amongst

1 50 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

themselves. Chatellerault maintained his sardonic
smile, but permitted himself to utter no word.

"I would, gentlemen," I cried, addressing them all,
"that His Majesty were here to see how you conduct
your trials and defile his Courts. As for you, Monsieur
le President, you violate the sanctity of your office in
giving way to anger; it is a thing unpardonable in a
judge. I have told you in plain terms, gentlemen,
that I am not this Rene de Lesperon with whose crimes
you charge me. Yet, in spite of my denials, ignoring
them, or setting them down either to a futile attempt
at defence or to an hallucination of which you suppose
me the victim, you proceed to lay those crimes to my
charge, and when I deny your charges you speak of
proofs that can only apply to another.

"How shall the name of Lesperon having been
found among the Duke of Montmorency's papers
convict me of treason, since I tell you that I am not
Lesperon ? Had you the slightest, the remotest sense
of your high duty, messieurs, you would ask me
rather to explain how, if what I state be true, I come
to be confounded with Lesperon and arrested in his
place. Then, messieurs, you might seek to test the
accuracy of what statements I may make; but to
proceed as you are proceeding is not to judge but to
murder. Justice is represented as a virtuous woman
with bandaged eyes, holding impartial scales; in your
hands, gentlemen, by my soul, she is become a very
harlot clutching a veil."

Chatellerault's cynical smile grew broader as my
speech proceeded and stirred up the rancour in the
hearts of those august gentlemen. The Keeper of the
Seals went white and red by turns, and when I paused

THE TRIBUNAL OF TOULOUSE 151

there was an impressive silence that lasted for some
moments. At last the President leant over to confer
in a whisper with Chatellerault. Then, in a voice
forcedly calm — like the calm of Nature when thun-
der is brewing — he asked me —

"Who do you insist that you are, monsieur?"

"Once already have I told you, and I venture to
think that mine is a name not easily forgotten. I am
the Sieur Marcel de Saint-Pol, Marquis of Bardelys,
of Bardelys in Picardy."

A cunning grin parted his thin lips.

"Have you any witnesses to identify you?"

"Hundreds, monsieur!" I answered eagerly, seeing
salvation already within my grasp.

"Name some of them."

"I will name one — one whose word you will not
dare to doubt."

"That is?"

"His Majesty the King. I am told that he is on his
way to Toulouse, and I but ask, messieurs, that you
await his arrival before going further with my trial."

"Is there no other witness of whom you can think,
monsieur? Some witness that might be produced
more readily. For if you can, indeed, extablish the
identity you claim, why should you languish in prison
for some weeks?"

His voice was soft and oily. The anger had all de-
parted out of it, which I — like a fool — imagined to
be due to my mention of the King.

" My friends, Monsieur le Garde des Sceaux, are all
either in Paris or in His Majesty 's train, and so not
likely to be here before him. There is my intendant,
Rodenard, and there are my servants — some twenty

152 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

of them — who may perhaps be still in Languedoc,
and for whom I would entreat you to seek. Them you
might succeed in finding within a few days if they have
not yet determined to return to Paris in the belief that
I am dead."

He stroked his chin meditatively, his eyes raised to
the sunlit dome of glass overhead.

"Ah — h!" he gasped. It was a long-drawn sigh of
regret, of conclusion, or of weary impatience. " There
is no one in Toulouse who will swear to your identity,
monsieur?" he asked.

" I am afraid there is not," I replied. " I know of no
one."

As I uttered those words the President's counte-
nance changed as abruptly as if he had flung off a
mask. From soft and cat-like that he had been during
the past few moments, he grew of a sudden savage as
a tiger. He leapt to his feet, his face crimson, his eyes
seeming to blaze, and the words he spoke came now
in a hot, confused, and almost incoherent torrent.

"Miserable!" he roared, "out of your own mouth
have you convicted yourself. And to think that you
should have stood there and wasted the time of this
Court — His Majesty's time — with your damnable
falsehoods! What purpose did you think to serve by
delaying your doom? Did you imagine that haply,
whilst we sent to Paris for your witnesses, the King
might grow weary of justice, and in some fit of
clemency announce a general pardon? Such things
have been known, and it may be that in your cunning
you played for such a gain based upon such a hope.
But justice, fool, is not to be cozened. Had you, in-
deed, been Bardelys, you had seen that here in this

THE TRIBUNAL OF TOULOUSE 153

court sits a gentleman who is very intimate with him.
He is there, monsieur; that is Monsieur le Comte de
Chatellerault, of whom perhaps you may have heard.
Yet, when I ask you whether in Toulouse there is any
one who can bear witness to your identity, you answer
me that you know of no one. I will waste no more
time with you, I promise you."

He flung himself back into his chair like a man
exhausted, and mopped his brow with a great kerchief
which he had drawn from his robes. His fellow-judges
laid their heads together, and with smiles and nods,
winks and leers, they discussed and admired the
miraculous subtlety and acumen of this Solomon.
Chatellerault sat, calmly smiling, in solemn mock-
ery.

For a spell I was too thunderstruck to speak, aghast
at this catastrophe. Like a fool, indeed, I had tumbled
into the pit that had been dug for me by Chatellerault
— for I never doubted that it was of his contriving.
At last —

"My masters," said I, "these conclusions may
appear to you most plausible, but, believe me, they
are fallacious. I am perfectly acquainted with Mon-
sieur de Chatellerault, and he with me, and if he were
to speak the truth and play the man and the gentle-
man for once, he would tell you that I am, indeed,
Bardelys. But Monsieur le Comte has ends of his own
to serve in sending me to my doom. It is in a sense
through his agency that I am at present in this
position, and that I have been confounded with Les-
peron. What, then, could it have availed me to have
made appeal to him ? And yet, Monsieur le President,
he was born a gentleman, and he may still retain some

154 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

notion of honour. Ask him, sir — ask him point-blank,
whether I am or not Marcel de Bardelys."

The firmness of my tones created some impres-
sion upon those feeble minds. Indeed, the President
went so far as to turn an interrogative glance upon
the Count. But Chatellerault, supremely master of
the situation, shrugged his shoulders, and smiled a
pitying, long-suffering smile.

"Must I really answer such a question, Monsieur le
President?" he inquired in a voice and with a manner
that clearly implied how low would be his estimate of
the President's intelligence if he were, indeed, con-
strained to do so.

" But no, Monsieur le Comte," replied the President
with sudden haste, and in scornful rejection of the idea.
"There is no necessity that you should answer."

"But the question, Monsieur le President!" I
thundered, my hand outstretched towards Chatelle-
rault. " Ask him — if you have any sense of your duty
— ask him am I not Marcel de Bardelys."

"Silence!" blazed the President back at me. "You
shall not fool us any longer, you nimble-witted liar!"

My head drooped. This coward had, indeed,
shattered my last hope.

"Some day, monsieur," I said very quietly, "I
promise you that your behaviour and these gratuitous
insults shall cost you your position. Pray God they do
not cost you also your head!"

My words they treated as one might treat the
threats of a child. That I should have had the
temerity to utter them did but serve finally to decide
my doom, if, indeed, anything had been wanting.

With many epithets of opprobrium, such as are

THE TRIBUNAL OF TOULOUSE 155

applied to malefactors of the lowest degree, they passed
sentence of death upon me, and with drooping spirits,
giving myself up for lost and assured that I should be
led to the block before many hours were sped, I
permitted them to reconduct me through the streets
of Toulouse to my prison.

I could entertain you at length upon my sensations
as I walked between my guards, a man on the thresh-
old of eternity, with hundreds of men and women
gaping at me — men and women who would live for
years to gape upon many another wretch in my
position. The sun shone with a brilliance that to such
eyes as mine was a very mockery. Thus would it
shine on through centuries, and light many another
unfortunate to the scaffold. The very sky seemed
pitiless in the intensity of its cobalt. Unfeeling I
deemed the note that everywhere was struck by man
and Nature, so discordant was it with my gloomy out-
look. If you would have food for reflection upon the
evanescent quality of life, upon the nothingness of man,
upon the empty, heartless egoism implicit in human
nature, get yourselves sentenced to death, and then
look around you. With such a force was all this borne
in upon me, and with such sufficiency, that after the
first pang was spent I went near to rejoicing that
things were as they were, and that I was to die, haply
before sunset. It was become such a world as did not
seem worth a man's while to live in: a world of vain-
ness, of hollowness, of meanness, of nothing but il-
lusions. The knowledge that I was about to die, that
I was about to quit all this, seemed to have torn some
veil from my eyes, and to have permitted me to
recognize the worthless quality of what I left. Well

156 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

may it be that such are but the thoughts of a man's
dying moments, whispered into his soul by a merciful
God to predispose him for the wrench and agony of
his passing.

I had been a half-hour in my cell when the door was
opened to admit Castelroux, whom I had not seen
since the night before. He came to condole with me in
my extremity, and yet to bid me not utterly lose hope.

"It is too late to-day to carry out the sentence,"
said he, "and as to-morrow will be Sunday, you will
have until the day after. By then much may betide,
monsieur. My agents are everywhere scouring the
province for your servants, and let us pray Heaven
that they may succeed in their search."

"It'is a forlorn hope, Monsieur de Castelroux," I
sighed, "and I will pin no faith to it lest I suffer a dis-
appointment that will embitter my last moments, and
perhaps rob me of some of the fortitude I shall have
need of."

He answered me, nevertheless, with words of en-
couragement. No effort was being spared, and if
Rodenard and my men were still in Languedoc there
was every likelihood that they would be brought to
Toulouse in time. Then he added that that, however,
was not the sole object of his visit. A lady had ob-
tained permission of the Keeper of the Seals to visit
me, and she was waiting to be admitted.

"A lady?" I exclaimed, and the thought of Roxa-
lanne flitted through my mind. "Mademoiselle de
Lavedan?" I inquired.

He nodded. "Yes," said he; then added, "She
seems in sore affliction, monsieur."

I besought him to admit her forthwith, and pres-

THE TRIBUNAL OF TOULOUSE 157

ently she came. Castelroux closed the door as he
withdrew, and we were left alone together. As she put
aside her cloak, and disclosed to me the pallor of her
face and the disfiguring red about her gentle eyes,
telling of tears and sleeplessness, all my own trouble
seemed to vanish in the contemplation of her affliction.

We stood a moment confronting each other with no
word spoken. Then, dropping her glance, and ad-
vancing a step, in a faltering, hesitating manner —

"Monsieur, monsieur," she murmured in a suffo-
cating voice.

In a bound I was beside her, and I had gathered her
in my arms, her little brown head against my shoulder.

"Roxalanne!" I whispered as soothingly as I
might — "Roxalanne!"

But she struggled to be free of my embrace.

"Let me go, monsieur," she pleaded, a curious
shrinking in her very voice. " Do not touch me, mon-
sieur. You do not know — you do not know."

For answer, I enfolded her more tightly still.

"But I do know, little one," I whispered; "and I
even understand."

At that, her struggles ceased upon the instant, and
she seemed to lie limp and helpless in my arms.

" You know, monsieur," she questioned me — "you
know that I betrayed you?"

"Yes," I answered simply.

"And you can forgive me? I am sending you to
your death and you have no reproaches for me! Oh,
monsieur, it will kill me!"

"Hush, child!" I whispered. "What reproaches
can I have for you ? I know the motives that impelled
you."

158 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

"Not altogether, monsieur; you cannot know them.
I loved you, monsieur. I do love you, monsieur. Oh !
this is not a time to consider words. If I am bold and
unmaidenly, I — I -

"Neither bold nor unmaidenly, but — oh, the
sweetest damsel in all France, my Roxalanne!" I
broke in, coming to her aid. " Mine was a leprous, sin-
ful soul, child, when I came into Languedoc. I had no
faith in any human good, and I looked as little for an
honest man or a virtuous woman as one looks for
honey in a nettle. I was soured, and my life had hardly
been such a life as it was meet to bring into contact
with your own. Then, among the roses at Lavedan, in
your dear company, Roxalanne, it seemed that some
of the good, some of the sweetness, some of the purity
about you were infused anew into my heart. I be-
came young again, and I seemed oddly cleansed. In
that hour of my rejuvenation I loved you, Roxalanne."

Her face had been raised to mine as I spoke. There
came now a flutter of the eyelids, a curious smile
about the lips. Then her head drooped again and was
laid against my breast; a sigh escaped her, and she
began to weep softly.

"Nay, Roxalanne, do not fret. Come, child, it is
not your way to be weak."

"I have betrayed you!" she moaned. "I am send-
ing you to your death!"

"I understand, I understand," I answered, smooth-
ing her brown hair.

"Not quite, monsieur. I loved you so, monsieur,
that you can have no thought of how I suffered that
morning when Mademoiselle de Marsac came to La-
vedan.

THE TRIBUNAL OF TOULOUSE 159

"At first it was but the pain of thinking that — that
I was about to lose you; that you were to go out of my
life, and that I should see you no more — you whom I
had enshrined so in my heart.

" I called myself a little fool that morning for having
dreamed that you had come to care for me; my vanity
I thought had deluded me into imagining that your
manner towards me had a tenderness that spoke of
affection. I was bitter with myself, and I suffered —
oh, so much! Then later, when I was in the rose
garden, you came to me.

"You remember how you seized me, and how by
your manner you showed me that it was not vanity
alone had misled me. You had fooled me, I thought;
even in that hour I imagined you were fooling me; you
made light of me; and my sufferings were naught to
you so that I might give you some amusement to pass
the leisure and monotony of your sojourn with us."

"Roxalanne — my poor Roxalanne!" I whispered.

"Then my bitterness and sorrow all turned to anger
against you. You had broken my heart, and I thought
that you had done it wantonly. For that I burned to
punish you. Ah ! and not only that, perhaps. I think,
too, that some jealousy drove me on. You had wooed
and slighted me, yet you had made me love you, and
if you were not for me I swore you should be for no
other. And so, while my madness endured, I quitted
Lavedan, and telling my father that I was going to
Auch, to his sister's house, I came to Toulouse and
betrayed you to the Keeper of the Seals.

"Scarce was the thing done than I beheld the horror
of it, and I hated myself. In my despair, I abandoned
all idea of pursuing the journey to Auch, but turned

T6o BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

and made my way back in haste, hoping that I might
still come to warn you. But at Grenade I met you al-
ready in charge of the soldiers. At Grenade, too, I
learnt the truth — that you were not Lesperon. Can
you not guess something of my anguish then ? Already
loathing my act, and beside myself for having betrayed
you, think into what despair I was plunged by Mon-
sieur de Marsac's intimation.

"Then I understood that for reasons of your own
you had concealed your identity. You were not,
perhaps, betrothed; indeed, I remembered then how
solemnly you had sworn that you were not; and so
I bethought me that your vows to me may have
been sincere and such as a maid might honourably
listen to."

"They were, Roxalanne! they were!" I cried.

But she continued —

"That you had Mademoiselle de Marsac's portrait
was something that I could not explain; but then I
hear that you had also Lesperon's papers upon you, so
that you may have become possessed of the one with
the others. And now, monsieur — "

She ceased, and there against my breast she lay
weeping and weeping in her bitter passion of regret,
until it seemed to me she would never regain her self-
control.

"It has been all my fault, Roxalanne," said I, "and
if I am to pay the price they are exacting, it will be
none too high. I embarked upon a dastardly business,
which brought me to Languedoc under false colours.
I wish, indeed, that I had told you when first the im-
pulse to tell you came upon me. Afterwards it grew
impossible."

THE TRIBUNAL OF TOULOUSE 161

"Tell me now," she begged. "Tell me who you

are."

Sorely was I tempted to respond. Almost was I on
the point of doing so, when suddenly the thought of
how she might shrink from me, of how, even then, she
might come to think that I had but simulated love for

O

her for infamous purposes of gain, restrained and
silenced me. During the few hours of life that might
be left me I would at least be lord and master of her
heart. When I was dead — for I had little hope of
Castelroux's efforts — it would matter less, and per-
haps because I was dead she would be merciful.

"I cannot, Roxalanne. Not even now. It is too vile!
If — if they carry out the sentence on Monday, I shall
leave a letter for you, telling you everything."

She shuddered, and a sob escaped her. From my
identity her mind fled back to the more important
matter of my fate.

"They will not carry it out, monsieur! Oh, they
will not! Say that you can defend yourself, that you
are not the man they believe you to be!"

"We are in God's hands, child. It may be that I
shall save myself yet. If I do, I shall come straight to
you, and you shall know all that there is to know.
But, remember, child" — and raising her face in my
hands, I looked down into the blue of her tearful eyes
— "remember, little one, that in one thing I have
been true and honourable, and influenced by nothing
but my heart — in my wooing of you. I love you,
Roxalanne, with all my soul, and if I should die you
are the only thing in all this world that I experience a
regret at leaving."

"I do believe it; I do, indeed. Nothing can ever

162 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

alter my belief again. Will you not, then, tell me who
you are, and what is this thing, which you call dis-
honourable, that brought you into Languedoc?"

A moment again I pondered. Then I shook my head.

"Wait, child," said I; and she, obedient to my
wishes, asked no more.

It was the second time that I neglected a favourable
opportunity of making that confession, and as I had
regretted having allowed the first occasion to pass un-
profited, so was I, and still more poignantly, to regret
this second silence.

A little while she stayed with me yet, and I sought
to instil some measure of comfort into her soul. I
spoke of the hopes that I based upon Castelroux's
finding friends to recognize me — hopes that were
passing slender. And she, poor child, sought also to
cheer me and give me courage.

" If only the King were here ! " she sighed. " I would
go to him, and on my knees I would plead for your en-
largement. But they say he is no nearer than Lyons,
and I could not hope to get there and back by Monday.
I will go to the Keeper of the Seals again, monsieur,
and I will beg him to be merciful, and at least to delay
the — sentence."

I did not discourage her; I did not speak of the
futility of such a step. But I begged her to remain in
Toulouse until Monday, that she might visit me again
before the end, if the end were to become inevitable.

Then Castelroux came to reconduct her, and we
parted. But she left me. a great consolation, a great
strengthening comfort. If I were destined, indeed, to
walk to the scaffold, it seemed that I could do it with
a better grace and a gladder courage now.

CHAPTER XIII
THE ELEVENTH HOUR

/^ASTELROUX visited me upon the following
\^>| morning, but he brought no news that might be
accounted encouraging. None of his messengers were
yet returned, nor had any sent word that they were
upon the trail of my followers. My heart sank a little,
and such hope as I still fostered was fast perishing.
Indeed, so imminent did my doom appear and so un-
avoidable, that later in the day I asked for pen and
paper that I might make an attempt at setting my
earthly affairs to rights. Yet when the writing ma-
terials were brought me, I wrote not. I sat instead
with the feathered end of my quill between my teeth,
and thus pondered the matter of the disposal of my
Picardy estates.

Coldly I weighed the wording of the wager and the
events that had transpired, and I came at length to
the conclusion that Chatellerault could not be held to
have the least claim upon my lands. That he had
cheated at the very outset, as I have earlier shown,
was of less account than that he had been instru-
mental in violently hindering me.

I took at last the resolve to indite a full memoir of
the transaction, and to request Castelroux to see that
it was delivered to the King himself. Thus not only
would justice be done, but I should — though tardily
- be even with the Count. No doubt he relied upon
his power to make a thorough search for such papers

164 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

as I might leave, and to destroy everything that might
afford indication of my true identity. But he had not
counted upon the good feeling that had sprung up be-
twixt the little Gascon captain and me, nor yet upon
my having contrived to convince the latter that I was,
indeed, Bardelys, and he little dreamt of such a step as
I was about to take to ensure his punishment here-
after.

Resolved at last, I was commencing to write when
my attention was arrested by an unusual sound. It
was at first no more than a murmuring noise, as of a
sea breaking upon its shore. Gradually it grew in
volume and assumed the shape of human voices raised
in lusty clamour. Then, above the din of the popu-
lace, a gun boomed out, then another, and another.

I sprang up at that, and, wondering what might be
toward, I crossed to my barred window and stood
there listening. I overlooked the courtyard of the jail,
and I could see some commotion below, in sympathy,
as it were, with the greater commotion without.

Presently, as the populace drew nearer, it seemed
to me that the shouting was of acclamation. Next I
caught a blare of trumpets, and, lastly, I was able to
distinguish above the noise, which had now grown to
monstrous proportions, the clattering hoofs of some
cavalcade that was riding past the prison doors.

It was borne in upon me that some great personage
was arriving in Toulouse, and my first thought was of
the King. At the idea of such a possibility my brain
whirled and I grew dizzy with hope. The next moment
I recalled that but last night Roxalanne had told me
that he was no nearer than Lyons, and so I put the
thought from me, and the hope with it, for, travelling

THE ELEVENTH HOUR 165

in that leisurely, indolent fashion that was character-
istic of his every action, it would be a miracle if His
Majesty should reach Toulouse before the week was
out, and this but Sunday.

The populace passed on, then seemed to halt, and
at last the shouts died down on the noontide air. I
went back to my writing, and to wait until from my
jailer, when next he should chance to appear, I might
learn the meaning of that uproar.

An hour perhaps went by, and I had made some
progress with my memoir, when my door was opened
and the cheery voice of Castelroux greeted me from
the threshold.

"Monsieur, I have brought a friend to see you."

I turned in my chair, and one glance at the gentle,
comely face and the fair hair of the young man stand-
ing beside Castelroux was enough to bring me of a
sudden to my feet.

"Mironsac!" I shouted, and sprang towards him
with hands outstretched.

But though my joy was great and my surprise pro-
found, greater still was the bewilderment that in
Mironsac's face I saw depicted.

"Monsieur de Bardelys!" he exclaimed, and a
hundred questions were contained in his astonished
eyes.

"Po' Cap de Diou!" growled his cousin, "I was
well advised, it seems, to have brought you."

"But," Mironsac asked his cousin, as he took my
hands in his own, "why did you not tell me, Amedee,
that it was to Monsieur le Marquis de Bardelys that
you were conducting me?"

"Would you have had me spoil so pleasant a sur-
prise?" his cousin demanded.

166 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

"Armand," said I, "never was a man more welcome
than are you. You are but come in time to save my
life."

And then, in answer to his questions, I told him
briefly of all that had befallen me since that night in
Paris when the wager had been laid, and of how,
through the cunning silence of Chatellerault, I was
now upon the very threshold of the scaffold. His
wrath burst forth at that, and what he said of the
Count did me good to hear. At last I stemmed his
invective.

"Let that be for the present, Mironsac," I laughed.
"You are here, and you can thwart all Chatellerault's
designs by witnessing to my identity before the Keeper
of the Seals."

And then of a sudden a doubt closed like a cold
hand upon my brain. I turned to Castelroux.

"Mon Dieu!" I cried. "What if they were to deny
me a fresh trial?"

"Deny it you!" he laughed. "They will not be
asked to grant you one."

"There will be no need," added Mironsac. "I have
but to tell the King — "

"But, my friend," I exclaimed impatiently, "I am
to die in the morning!"

"And the King shall be told to-day — now, at once.
I will go to him."

I stared askance a moment; then the thought of the
uproar that I had heard recurring to me —

"Has the King arrived already?" I exclaimed.

"Naturally, monsieur. How else do I come to be
here? I am in His Majesty's train."

At that I grew again impatient. I thought of Roxa-

THE ELEVENTH HOUR 167

lanne and of how she must be suffering, and I be-
thought me that every moment Mironsac now re-
mained in my cell was another moment of torture for
that poor child. So I urged him to be gone at once and
carry news of my confinement to His Majesty. He
obeyed me, and I was left alone once more, to pace up
and down in my narrow cell, a prey to an excitement
such as I should have thought I had outlived.

At the end of a half-hour Castelroux returned alone.

"Well?" I cried the moment the door opened, and
without giving him so much as time to enter. "What
news?"

"Mironsac tells me that His Majesty is more over-
wrought than he has ever seen him. You are to come
to the Palace at once. I have an order here from the
King."

We went in a coach, and with all privacy, for he in-
formed me that His Majesty desired the affair to
be kept secret, having ends of his own to serve
thereby.

I was left to wait some moments in an ante-chamber,
whilst Castelroux announced me to the King; then
I was ushered into a small apartment, furnished very
sumptuously in crimson and gold, and evidently set
apart for His Majesty's studies or devotions. As I
entered, Louis's back was towards me. He was stand-
ing — a tall, spare figure in black — leaning against
the frame of a window, his head supported on his
raised left arm and his eyes intent upon the gardens
below.

He remained so until Castelroux had withdrawn
and the door had closed again ; then, turning suddenly,
he confronted me, his back to the light, so that his face

i68 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

was in a shadow that heightened its gloom and wonted
weariness.

"Voila, Monsieur de Bardelys!" was his greeting,
and unfriendly. "See the pass to which your dis-
obedience of my commands has brought you."

"I would submit, Sire," I answered, "that I have
been brought to it by the incompetence of Your
Majesty's judges and the ill-will of others whom Your
Majesty honours with too great a confidence, rather
than by this same disobedience of mine/'

"The one and the other, perhaps," he said more
softly. "Though, after all, they appear to have had a
very keen nose for a traitor. Come, Bardelys, confess
yourself that."

"I? A traitor?"

He shrugged his shoulders, and laughed without
any conspicuous mirth.

" Is not a traitor one who runs counter to the wishes
of his King? And are you not, therefore, a traitor,
whether they call you Lesperon or Bardelys? But
there," he ended more softly still, and flinging himself
into a chair as he spoke, " I have been so wearied since
you left me, Marcel. They have the best intentions in
the world, these dullards, and some of them love me,
even; but they are tiresome all. Even Chatellerault,
when he has a fancy for a jest — as in your case -
perpetrates it with the grace of a bear, the sprightli-
ness of an elephant."

"Jest? "said I.

"You find it no jest, Marcel? Pardieu, who shall
blame you? He would be a man of unhealthy humour
that could relish such a pleasantry as that of being
sentenced to death. But tell me of it. The whole

THE ELEVENTH HOUR 169

story. Marcel. I have not heard a story worth the
listening to since — since you left us."

"Would it please you, Sire, to send for the Comte
de Chatellerault ere I begin?" I asked.

"Chatellerault? No, no." He shook his head
whimsically. "Chatellerault has had his laugh
already, and, like the ill-mannered dog he is, he has
kept it to himself. I think, Marcel, that it is our turn
now. I have purposely sent Chatellerault away that
he may gain no notion of the catastrophic jest we are
preparing him in return."

The words set me in the very best of humours, and
to that it may be due that presently, as I warmed to
my narrative, I lent it a vigour that drew His Majesty
out of his wonted apathy and listlessness. He leaned
forward when I told him of my encounter with the
dragoons at Mirepoix, and how first I had committed
the false step of representing myself to be Lesperon.

Encouraged by his interest, I proceeded, and I told
my story with as much piquancy as I was master of,
repressing only those slight matters which might re-
flect upon Monsieur de Lavedan's loyalty, but other-
wise dealing frankly with His Majesty, even down to
the genuineness of the feelings I entertained for Roxa-
lanne. Often he laughed, more often still he nodded
approvingly, in understanding and sympathy, whilst
now and then he purred his applause. But towards
the end, when I came to the matter of the Tribunal of
Toulouse, of how my trial was conducted, and of the
part played in it by Chatellerault, his face grew set
and hard.

"It is true — all this that you tell me?" he cried
harshly.

170 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

"As true as the Gospels. If you deem an oath
necessary, Sire, I swear by my honour that I have
uttered nothing that is false, and that, in connec-
tion with Monsieur de Chatellerault, even as I have
suppressed nothing, so also have I exaggerated
nothing."

"The dastard!" he snapped. "But we will avenge
you, Marcel. Never fear it."

Then the trend of his thoughts being changed, he
smiled wearily.

"By my faith, you may thank God every night of
your worthless life that I came so opportunely to
Toulouse, and so may that fair child whose beauty
you have limned with such a lover's ardour. Nay,
never redden, Marcel. What? At your age, and with
such a heavy score of affaires to your credit, has it
been left for a simple Languedoc maiden to call a
blush to your callous cheek? Ma foi, they say truly
that love is a great regenerator, a great rejuvenator!"

I made him no answer other than a sigh, for his
words set me thinking, and with thought came a
tempering of the gay humour that had pervaded me.
Remarking this, and misreading it, he laughed out-
right.

"There, Marcel, never fear. We will not be rigor-
ous. You have won both the maid and the wager,
and, by the Mass, you shall enjoy both."

"Helas, Sire," I sighed again, "when the lady
comes to know of the wager —

"Waste no time in telling her, Marcel, and cast
yourself upon her mercy. Nay, go not with so gloomy
a face, my friend. When woman loves, she can be
very merciful — leastways, they tell me so."

THE ELEVENTH HOUR 171

Then, his thoughts shifting ground once more, he
grew stern again.

"But first we have Chatellerault to deal with.
What shall we do with him?"

"It is for Your Majesty to decide."

"For me?" he cried, his voice resuming the harsh-
ness that was never far from it. "I have a fancy for
having gentlemen about me. Think you I will set
eyes again upon that dastard? I am already resolved
concerning him, but it entered my mind that it might
please you to be the instrument of the law for me."

"Me, Sire?"

"Aye, and why not? They say you can play a very
deadly sword upon necessity. This is an occasion that
demands an exception from our edict. You have
my sanction to send the Comte de Chatellerault a
challenge. And see that you kill him, Bardelys!" he
continued viciously. "For, by the Mass, if you don't,
I will ! If he escapes your sword, or if he survives such
hurt as you may do him, the headsman shall have him.
Mordieu ! is it for nothing that I am called Louis the
Just?"

I stood in thought for a moment. Then —

"If I do this thing, Sire," I ventured, "the world
will say of me that I did so to escape the payment I
had incurred."

"Fool, you have not incurred it. When a man
cheats, does he not forfeit all his rights?"

"That is very true. But the world — "

"Peste!" he snapped impatiently, "you are begin-
ning to weary me, Marcel — and all the world does
that so excellently that it needs not your collaboration.
Go your ways, man, and do as you elect. But take my

172 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

sanction to slay this fellow Chatellerault, and I shall
be the better pleased if you avail yourself of it. He is
lodged at the Auberge Royale, where probably you
will find him at present. Now, go. I have more justice
to dispense in this rebellious province."

I paused a moment.

" Shall I not resume my duties near Your Majesty? "

He pondered a moment, then he smiled in his weary
way.

"It would please me to have you, for these creatures
are so dismally dull, all of them. Je m'ennuie telle-
ment, Marcel!" he sighed. "Ough! But, no, my
friend, I do not doubt you would be as dull as any of
them at present. A man in love is the weariest and
most futile thing in all this weary, futile world. What
shall I do with your body what time your soul is at
Lavedan? I doubt me you are in haste to get you
there. So go, Marcel. Get you wed, and live out your
amorous intoxication; marriage is the best antidote.
When that is done, return to me."

"That will be never, Sire," I answered slyly.

"Say you so, Master Cupid Bardelys?" And he
combed his beard reflectively. "Be not too sure.
There have been other passions — aye, as great as
yours — yet have they staled. But you waste my
time. Go, Marcel; you are excused your duties by me
for as long as your own affairs shall hold you elsewhere
- for as long as you please. We are here upon a
gloomy business — as you know. There are my
cousin Montmorency and the others to be dealt with,
and we are holding no levees, countenancing no
revels. But come to me when you will, and I will see
you. Adieu!"

THE ELEVENTH HOUR 173

I murmured my thanks, and very deep and sincere
were they. Then, having kissed his hand, I left him.

Louis XIII is a man who lacks not maligners. Of
how history may come to speak of him it is not mine
to hazard. But this I can say, that I, at least, did
never find him other than a just and kindly master, an
upright gentleman, capricious at times and wilful, as
must inevitably be the case with such spoilt children
of fortune as are princes, but of lofty ideals and high
principles. It was his worst fault that he was always
tired, and through that everlasting weariness he came
to entrust the determining of most affairs to His
Eminence. Hence has it resulted that the censure for
many questionable acts of his reign, which were the
work of my Lord Cardinal, has recoiled upon my
august master's head.

But to me, with all the faults that may be assigned
him, he was ever Louis the Just, and wherever his
name be mentioned in my hearing, I bare my head.

CHAPTER XIV
EAVESDROPPING

I TURNED it over in my mind, after I had left the
King's presence, whether or not I should visit with
my own hands upon Chatellerault the punishment he
had so fully earned. That I would have gone about
the task rejoicing you may readily imagine; but there
was that accursed wager, and — to restrain me — the
thought of how such an action might be construed into
an evasion of its consequences. Better a thousand
times that His Majesty should order his arrest and
deal with him for his attempted perversion of justice
to the service of his own vile ends. The charge of
having abused his trust as King's commissioner to the
extent of seeking to do murder through the channels
of the Tribunal was one that could not fail to have
fatal results for him — as, indeed, the King had sworn.

That was the position of affairs as it concerned
Chatellerault, the world, and me. But the position
must also be considered as it concerned Roxalanne,
and deeply, indeed, did I so consider it. Much ponder-
ing brought me again to the conclusion that until I
had made the only atonement in my power, the only
atonement that would leave me with clean hands, I
must not again approach her.

Whether Chatellerault had cheated or not could
not affect the question as it concerned Mademoiselle
and me. If I paid the wager — whether in honour
bound to do so or not — I might then go to her, im-

EAVESDROPPING 175

poverished, it is true, but at least with no suspicion
attaching to my suit of any ulterior object other than
that of winning Roxalanne herself.

I could then make confession, and surely the fact
that I had paid where clearly there was no longer any
need to pay must earn me forgiveness and afford proof
of the sincerity of my passion.

Upon such a course, then, did I decide, and, with
this end in view, I took my way towards the Auberge
Roy ale, where His Majesty had told me that the
Count was lodged. It was my purpose to show myself
fully aware of the treacherous and unworthy part he
had played at the very inception of the affair, and
that if I chose to consider the wager lost it was that I
might the more honestly win the lady.

Upon inquiring at the hostelry for Monsieur de
Chatellerault, I was informed by the servant I ad-
dressed that he was within, but that at the moment
he had a visitor. I replied that I would wait, and
demanded a private room, since I desired to avoid
meeting any Court acquaintances who might chance
into the auberge before I had seen the Count.

My apparel at the moment may not have been all
that could have been desired, but when a gentleman's
rearing has taken place amid an army of servitors to
minister to his every wish, he is likely to have acquired
an air that is wont to win him obedience. With all
celerity was I ushered into a small chamber, opening
on the one side upon the common room, and being
divided on the other by the thinnest of wooden
partitions from the adjoining apartment.

Here, the landlord having left me, I disposed myself
to wait, and here I did a thing I would not have be-

176 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

lieved myself capable of doing, a thing I cannot think
of without blushing to this very day. In short, I
played the eavesdropper — I, Marcel Saint-Pol de
Bardelys. Yet, if you who read and are nice-minded,
shudder at this confession, or, worse still, shrug your
shoulders in contempt, with the reflection that such
former conduct of mine as I have avowed had already
partly disposed you against surprise at this — I do
but ask that you measure my sin by my temptation,
and think honestly whether in my position you might
not yourselves have fallen. Aye — be you never so
noble and high-principled — I make bold to say that
you had done no less, for the voice that penetrated to
my ears was that of Roxalanne de Lavedan.

"I sought an audience with the King," she was say-
ing, "but I could not gain his presence. They told me
that he was holding no levees, and that he refused to
see any one not introduced by one of those having the
private entree."

"And so," answered the voice of Chatellerault, in
tones that were perfectly colourless, "you come to me
that I may present you to His Majesty?"

" You have guessed it, Monsieur le Comte. You are
the only gentleman of His Majesty's suite, with whom
I can claim acquaintance — however slight — and,
moreover, it is well known how high you stand in his
royal favour. I was told that they that have a boon to
crave can find no better sponsor."

"Had you gone to the King, mademoiselle," said
he, "had you gained an audience, he would but have
directed you to make your appeal to me. I am his
Commissioner in Languedoc, and the prisoners
attainted with high treason are my property."

EAVESDROPPING 177

"Why then, monsieur/' she cried in an eager voice,
that set my pulses throbbing, " you'll not deny me the
boon I crave? You'll not deny me his life?"

There was a short laugh from Chatellerault, and I
could hear the deliberate fall of his feet as he paced
the chamber.

"Mademoiselle, mademoiselle, you must not over-
rate my powers. You must not forget that I am the
slave of justice. You may be asking more than is in
my power to grant. What can you advance to show
that I should be justified in proceeding as you wish?"

"Helas, monsieur, I can advance nothing but my
prayers and the assurance that a hideous mistake is
being made."

"What is your interest in this Monsieur de Les-
peron?"

"He is not Monsieur de Lesperon," she cried.

"But, since you cannot tell me who he is, you must
be content that we speak of him at least as Lesperon,"
said he, and I could imagine the evil grin with which
he would accompany the words.

The better that you may appreciate that which
followed, let me here impart to you the suspicions
which were already sinking into my mind, to be
changed later into absolute convictions touching the
course the Count intended to pursue concerning me.
The sudden arrival of the King had thrown him into
some measure of panic, and no longer daring to carry
out his plans concerning me, it was his object, I make
no doubt, to set me at liberty that very evening. Ere
he did so, however, and presuming upon my ignorance
of His Majesty's presence in Toulouse, Chatellerault
would of a certainty have bound me down by solemn

178 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

promise — making that promise the price of my
liberty and my life — to breathe no word of my
captivity and trial. No doubt, his cunning brain would
have advanced me plausible and convincing reasons
so to engage myself.

He had not calculated upon Castelroux, nor that the
King should already have heard of my detention.
Now that Roxalanne came to entreat him to do that
which already he saw himself forced to do, he turned
his attention to the profit that he might derive from
her interestedness on my behalf. I could guess also
something of the jealous rage that must fill him at
this signal proof of my success with her, and already
I anticipated, I think, the bargain that he would
drive.

"Tell me, then," he was repeating, "what is your
interest in this gentleman?"

There was a silence. I could imagine her gentle face
clouded with the trouble that sprang from devising an
answer to that question; I could picture her innocent
eyes cast down, her delicate cheeks pinked by some
measure of shame, as at last, in a low, stifled voice, the
four words broke from her —

"I love him, monsieur."

Ah, Dieu! To hear her confess it so! If yesternight
it had stirred me to the very depths of my poor, sinful
soul to have her say so much to me, how infinitely
more did it not affect me to overhear this frank avowal
of it to another! And to think that she was undergo-
ing all this to the end that she might save me!

From Chatellerault there came an impatient snort
in answer, and his feet again smote the floor as he re-
sumed the pacing that fora moment he had sus-

EAVESDROPPING 179

pended. Then followed a pause, a long silence, broken
only by the Count's restless walking to and fro. At
last-

"Why are you silent, monsieur?" she asked in a
trembling voice.

"Helas, mademoiselle, I can do nothing. I had
feared that it might be thus with you; and, if I put the
question, it was in the hope that I was wrong."

"But he, monsieur?" she exclaimed in anguish.
"What of him?"

" Believe me, mademoiselle, if it lay in my power I
would save him were he never so guilty, if only that I
might spare you sorrow."

He spoke with tender regret, foul hypocrite that he
was!

" Oh, no, no ! " she cried, and her voice was of horror
and despair. " You do not mean that — " She stopped
short; and then, after a pause, it was the Count who
finished the sentence for her.

"I mean, mademoiselle, that this Lesperon must
die!"

You will marvel that I let her suffer so, that I. did
not break down the partition with my hands and
strike that supple gentleman dead at her feet in atone-
ment for the anguish he was causing her. But I had a
mind to see how far he would drive this game he was
engaged upon.

Again there was a spell of silence, and at last, when
Mademoiselle spoke, I was amazed at the calm voice
in which she addressed him, marvelling at the
strength and courage of one so frail and childlike to
behold.

"Is your determination, indeed, irrevocable, mon-

i8o BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

sieur? If you have any pity, will you not at least let
me bear my prayers and my tears to the King?"

"It would avail you nothing. As I have said, the
Languedoc rebels are in my hands." He paused as if
to let those words sink well into her understanding;
then, "If I were to set him at liberty, mademoiselle, if
I were to spirit him out of prison in the night, bribing
his jailers to keep silent and binding him by oath to
quit France at once and never to betray me, I should
be, myself, guilty of high treason. Thus alone could
the thing be done, and you will see, mademoiselle,
that by doing it I should be endangering my neck."

There was an ineffable undercurrent of meaning in
his words — an intangible suggestion that he might
be bribed to do all this to which he so vaguely al-
luded.

"I understand, monsieur," she answered, choking
— "I understand that it would be too much to ask of
you."

"It would be much, mademoiselle," he returned
quickly, and his voice was now subdued and invested
with an odd quiver. " But nothing that your lips might
ask of me and that it might lie in the power of mortal
man to do, would be too much!"

" You mean ? " she cried, a catch in her breath. Had
she guessed — as I, without sight of her face, had
guessed — what was to follow? My gorge was rising
fast. I clenched my hands, and by an effort I re-
strained myself to learn that I had guessed aright.

"Some two months ago," he said, "I journeyed to
Lavedan, as you may remember. I saw you, made-
moiselle — for a brief while only, it is true — and
ever since I have seen nothing else but you." His

EAVESDROPPING 181

voice went a shade lower, and passion throbbed in his
words.

She, too, perceived it, for the grating of a chair in-
formed me that she had risen.

"Not now, monsieur — not now!" she exclaimed.
"This is not the season. I beg of you think of my
desolation."

"I do, mademoiselle, and I respect your grief, and,
with all my heart, believe me, I share it. Yet this is
the season, and if you have this man's interests at
heart, you will hear me to the end."

Through all the imperiousness of his tone an odd
note of respect — real or assumed — was sounding.

"If you suffer, mademoiselle, believe me that I
suffer also, and if I make you suffer more by what I
say, I beg that you will think how what you have said,
how the very motive of your presence here, has made
me suffer. Do you know, mademoiselle, what it is to
be torn by jealousy? Can you imagine it? If you can,
you can imagine also something of the torture I en-
dured when you confessed to me that you loved this
Lesperon, when you interceded for his life. Mademoi-
selle, I love you — with all my heart and soul I love
you. I have loved you, I think, since the first moment
of our meeting at Lavedan, and to win you there is no
risk that I would not take, no danger that I would
not brave."

"Monsieur, I implore you — "

"Hear me out, mademoiselle!" he cried. Then in
quieter voice he proceeded: "At present you love
this Monsieur de Lesperon — "

"I shall always love him! Always, monsieur!"

"Wait, wait, wait!" he exclaimed, annoyed by her

182 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

interruption. " If he were to live, and you were to wed
him and be daily in his company, I make no doubt
your love might endure. But if he were to die, or if he
were to pass into banishment and you were to see him
no more, you would mourn him for a little while,
and then — Helas! it is the way of men and women -
time would heal first your sorrow, then your heart."

"Never, monsieur — oh, never!"

"I am older, child, than you are. I know. At
present you are anxious to save his life — anxious be-
cause you love him, and also because you betrayed
him, and you would not have his death upon your
conscience." He paused a moment; then raising his
voice, "Mademoiselle," said he, "I offer you your
lover's life."

"Monsieur, monsieur!" cried the poor child, "I
knew you were good! I knew — "

"A moment! Do not misapprehend me. I do not
say that I give it — I offer it."

"But the difference?"

"That if you would have it, mademoiselle, you
must buy it. I have said that for you I would brave
all dangers. To save your lover, I brave the scaffold.
If I am betrayed, or if the story transpire, my head
will assuredly fall in the place of Lesperon's. This
I will risk, mademoiselle — I will do it gladly — if you
will promise to become my wife when it is done."

There was a moan from Roxalanne, then silence;
then — "Oh, monsieur, you are pitiless! What bar-
gain is this that you offer me?"

"A fair one, surely," said that son of hell— "a very
fair one. The risk of my life against your hand in
marriage."

EAVESDROPPING 183

"If you — if you truly loved me as you say, mon-
sieur," she reasoned, "you would serve me without
asking guerdon."

" In any other thing I would. But is it fair to ask a
man who is racked by love of you to place another in
your arms, and that at the risk of his own life ? Ah,
mademoiselle, I am but a man, and I am subject to
human weaknesses. If you will consent, this Lesperon
shall go free, but you must see him no more; and I will
carry my consideration so far as to give you six months
in which to overcome your sorrow, ere I present my-
self to you again to urge my suit."

"And if I refuse, monsieur?"

He sighed.

"To the value which I set upon my life you must
add my very human jealousy. From such a combina-
tion what can you hope for?"

"You mean, in short, that he must die?"

"To-morrow," was that infernal cheat's laconic
answer.

They were silent a little while, then she fell a-sobbing.

"Be pitiful, monsieur! Have mercy if you, indeed,
love me. Oh, he must not die! I cannot, I dare not,
let him die ! Save him, monsieur, and I will pray for
you every night of my life; I will pray for you to our
Holy Mother as I am now praying to you for him."

Lived there the man to resist that innocent, devout
appeal? Lived there one who in answer to such gentle
words of love and grief could obtrude his own coarse
passions? It seems there did, for all he answered
was —

"You know the price, child."

"And God pity me! I must pay it. I must, for if

184 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

he dies I shall have his blood upon my conscience!"
Then she checked her grief, and her voice grew almost
stern in the restraint she set upon herself. "If I give
you my promise to wed you hereafter — say in six
months' time — what proof will you afford me that he
who is detained under the name of Lesperon shall go
free?"

I caught the sound of something very like a gasp
from the Count.

"Remain in Toulouse until to-morrow, and to-night
ere he departs he shall come to take his leave of you.
Are you content?"

"Be it so, monsieur," she answered.

Then at last I leapt to my feet. I could endure no
more. You may marvel that I had had the heart to
endure so much, and to have so let her suffer that I
might satisfy myself how far this scoundrel Chatelle-
rault would drive his trickster's bargain.

A more impetuous man would have beaten down
the partition, or shouted to her through it the consola-
tion that Chatellerault's bargain was no bargain at
all, since I was already at large. And that is where a
more impetuous man would have acted upon instinct
more wisely than did I upon reason. Instead, I opened
the door, and, crossing the common room, I flung my-
self down a passage that I thought must lead to the
chamber in which they were closeted. But in this I
was at fault, and ere I had come upon a waiter and
been redirected some precious moments were lost. He
led me back through the common room to a door
opening upon another corridor. He pushed it wide,
and I came suddenly face to face with Cha teller ault,
still flushed from his recent contest.

EAVESDROPPING 185

"You here!" he gasped, his jaw falling, and his
cheeks turning pale, as well they might; for all that he
could not dream I had overheard his bargaining.

" We will go back, if you please, Monsieur le Comte,"
said I.

"Back where?" he asked stupidly.

" Back to Mademoiselle. Back to the room you have
just quitted." And none too gently I pushed him into
the corridor again, and so, in the gloom, I missed the
expression of his face.

"She is not there," said he.

I laughed shortly.

"Nevertheless, we will go back," I insisted.

And so I had my way, and we gained the room where
his infamous traffic had been held. Yet for once he
spoke the truth. She was no longer there.

"Where is she?" I demanded angrily.

"Gone," he answered; and when I protested that I
had not met her, "You would not have a lady go by
way of the public room, would you?" he demanded
insolently. "She left by the side door into the court-
yard."

"That being so, Monsieur le Comte," said I quietly,
"I will have a little talk with you before going after
her." And I carefully closed the door.

w

CHAPTER XV

MONSIEUR DE CHATELLERAULT IS ANGRY

ITHIN the room Chatellerault and I faced
each other in silence. And how vastly changed
were the circumstances since our last meeting !

The disorder that had stamped itself upon his
countenance when first he had beheld me still pre-
vailed. There was a lowering, sullen look in his eyes
and a certain displacement of their symmetry which
was peculiar to them when troubled.

Although a cunning plotter and a scheming in-
triguer in his own interests, Chatellerault, as I have
said before, was not by nature a quick man. His wits
worked slowly, and he needed leisure to consider a
situation and his actions therein ere he was in a
position to engage with it.

"Monsieur le Comte," quoth I ironically, "I make
you my compliments upon your astuteness and the
depth of your schemes, and my condolences upon the
little accident owing to which I am here, and in
consequence of which your pretty plans are likely to
miscarry/'

He threw back his great head like a horse that feels
the curb, and his smouldering eyes looked up at me
balefully. Then his sensuous lips parted in scorn.

"How much do you know?" he demanded, with
sullen contempt.

"I have been in that room for the half of an hour,"
I answered, rapping the partition with my knuckles.

M. DE CHATELLERAULT IS ANGRY 187

"The dividing wall, as you will observe, is thin, and I
heard everything that passed between you and Made-
moiselle de Lavedan."

"So that Bardelys, known as the Magnificent; Bar-
delys the mirror of chivalry; Bardelys the arbiter
elegantiarum of the Court of France, is no better, it
seems, than a vulgar spy."

If he sought by that word to anger me, he failed.

"Lord Count," I answered him very quietly, "you
are of an age to know that the truth alone has power
to wound. I was in that room by accident, and when
the first words of your conversation reached me I had
not been human had I not remained and strained my
ears to catch every syllable you uttered. For the rest,
let me ask you, my dear Chatellerault, since when
have you become so nice that you dare cast it at a
man that he has been eavesdropping?"

"You are obscure, monsieur. What is it that you
suggest?"

"I am signifying that when a man stands unmasked
for a cheat, a liar, and a thief, his own character should
give him concern enough to restrain him from stric-
tures upon that of another."

A red flush showed through the tan of his skin, then
faded and left him livid — a very evil sight, as God
lives. He flung his heavily-feathered hat upon the
table, and carried his hand to his hilt.

" God's blood ! " he cried. " You shall answer me for
this."

I shook my head and smiled; but I made no sign of
drawing.

"Monsieur, we must talk a while. I think that you
had better."

188 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

He raised his sullen eyes to mine. Perhaps the
earnest impressiveness of my tones prevailed. Be that
as it may, his half-drawn sword was thrust back with
a click, and —

"What have you to say?" he asked.

" Be seated." I motioned him to a chair by the table
and when he had taken it I sat down opposite to him.
Taking up a quill, I dipped it in the ink-horn that
stood by, and drew towards me a sheet of paper.

" When you lured me into the wager touching Made-
moiselle de Lavedan," said I calmly, "you did so,
counting upon certain circumstances, of which you
alone had knowledge, that should render impossible
the urging of my suit. That, Monsieur le Comte, was
undeniably the action of a cheat. Was it not?"

"Damnation!" he roared, and would have risen,
but, my hand upon his arm, I restrained him and
pressed him back into his chair.

"By a sequence of fortuitous circumstances," I
pursued, "it became possible for me to circumvent the
obstacle upon which you had based your calculations.
Those same circumstances led later to my being
arrested in error and in place of another man. You
discovered how I had contravened the influence upon
which you counted; you trembled to see how the un-
expected had befriended me, and you began to fear
for your wager.

"What did you do? Seeing me arraigned before you
in your quality as King's Commissioner, you pre-
tended to no knowledge of me; you became blind
to my being any but Lesperon the rebel, and you
sentenced me to death in his place, so that being thus
definitely removed I should be unable to carry out my

M. DE CHATELLERAULT IS ANGRY 189

undertaking, and my lands should consequently pass
into your possession. That, monsieur, was at once the
act of a thief and a murderer. Wait, monsieur; re-
strain yourself until I shall have done. To-day again
fortune comes to my rescue. Again you see me slip-
ping from your grasp, and you are in despair. Then,
in the eleventh hour, Mademoiselle de Lavedan comes
to you to plead for my life. By that act she gives you
the most ample proof that your wager is lost. What
would a gentleman, a man of honour, have done under
these circumstances? What did you do? You seized
that last chance; you turned it to the best account;
you made this poor girl buy something from you; you
made her sell herself to you for nothing — pretending
that your nothing was a something of great value.
What term shall we apply to that? To say that you
cheated again seems hardly adequate."

"By God, Bardelys!"

"Wait!" I thundered, looking him straight between
the eyes, so that again he sank back cowed. Then re-
suming the calm with which hitherto I had addressed
him, "Your cupidity," said I, "your greed for the
estates of Bardelys, and your jealousy and thirst to
see me impoverished and so ousted from my position
at Court, to leave you supreme in His Majesty's fa-
vour, have put you to strange shifts for a gentleman,
Chatellerault. Yet, wait."

And, dipping my pen in the ink-horn, I began to
write. I was conscious of his eyes upon me, and I
could imagine his surmisings and bewildered specula-
tions as my pen scratched rapidly across the paper. In
a few moments it was done, and I tossed the pen aside.
I took up the sandbox.

i9o BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

"When a man cheats. Monsieur le Comte, and is
detected, he is invariably adjudged the loser of his
stakes. On that count alone everything that you have
is now mine by rights." Again I had to quell an inter-
ruption. "But if we waive that point, and proceed
upon the supposition that you have dealt fairly and
honourably with me, why, then, monsieur, you have
still sufficient evidence — the word of Mademoiselle,
herself, in fact — that I have won my wager. And so,
if we take this, the most lenient view of the case " — I
paused to sprinkle the sand over my writing — "your
estates are still lost to you, and pass to be my
property."

"Do they, by God?" he roared, unable longer to
restrain himself, and leaping to his feet. "You have
done, have you not? You have said all that you can
call to mind? You have flung insults and epithets at
me enough to earn the cutting of a dozen throats.
You have dubbed me cheat and thief " - he choked
in his passion — "until you have had your fill — is
it not so? Now, listen to me, Master Bardelys, mas-
ter spy, master buffoon, master masquerader! What
manner of proceeding was yours to go to Lavedan
under a false name? How call you that? Was that,
perhaps, not cheating?"

"No, monsieur, it was not," I answered quietly.
"It was in the terms of your challenge that I was free
to go to Lavedan in what guise I listed, employing
what wiles I pleased. But let that be," I ended, and,
creasing the paper, I poured the sand back into the
box, and dusted the document. "The point is hardly
worth discussing at this time of day. If not one way,
why, then, in another, your wager is lost."

M. DE CHATELLERAULT IS ANGRY 191

"Is it?" He set his arms akimbo and eyed me deri-
sively, his thick-set frame planted squarely before me.
"You are satisfied that it is so? Quite satisfied, eh?"
He leered in my face. "Why, then, Monsieur le Mar-
quis, we will see whether a few inches of steel will win
it back for me." And once more his hand flew to his
hilt.

Rising, I flung the document I had accomplished
upon the table. "Glance first at that," said I.

He stopped to look at me in inquiry, my manner
sowing so great a curiosity in him that his passion was
all scattered before it. Then he stepped up to the
table and lifted the paper. As he read, his hand
shook, amazement dilated his eyes and furrowed his
brow.

"What — what does it signify?" he gasped.

"It signifies that, although fully conscious of hav-
ing won, I prefer to acknowledge that I have lost. I
make over to you thus my estates of Bardelys, because,
monsieur, I have come to realize that that wager was
an infamous one — one in which a gentleman should
have had no part — and the only atonement I can
make — to myself, my honour, and the lady whom
we insulted — is that."

"I do not understand," he complained.

"I apprehend your difficulty, Comte. The point is
a nice one. But understand at least that my Picardy
estates are yours. Only, monsieur, you will be well
advised to make your will forthwith, for you are not
destined, yourself, to enjoy them."

He looked at me, his glance charged with inquiry.

"His Majesty," I continued, in answer to his glance,
"is ordering your arrest for betraying the trust he

i92 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

had reposed in you and for perverting the ends of
justice to do your own private murdering."

"Mon Dieu!" he cried, falling of a sudden into a
most pitiful affright. "The King knows?"

" Knows ? " I laughed. " In the excitement of these
other matters you have forgotten to ask how I come
to be at liberty. I have been to the King, monsieur,
and I have told him what has taken place here at
Toulouse, and how I was to have gone to the block to-
morrow!"

"Scelerat!" he cried. "You have ruined me!"
Rage and grief were blent in his accents. He stood be-
fore me, livid of face and with hands clenching and
unclenching at his sides.

"Did you expect me to keep such a matter silent?
Even had I been so inclined it had not been easy, for
His Majesty had questions to ask me. From what the
King said, monsieur, you may count upon mounting
the scaffold in my stead. So be advised, and make
your will without delay, if you would have your heirs
enjoy my Picardy chateau."

I have seen terror and anger distort men's counte-
nances, but never have I seen aught to compare with
the disorder of Chatellerault at that moment. He
stamped and raved and fumed. He poured forth a
thousand ordures of speech in his frenzy; he heaped
insults upon me and imprecations upon the King,
whose lapdog he pronounced me. His short, stout
frame was quivering with passion and fear, his broad
face distorted by his hideous grimaces of rage. And
then, while yet his ravings were in full flow, the door
opened, and in stepped the airy Chevalier de Saint-
Eustache.

M. DE CHATELLERAULT IS ANGRY 193

He stood still, amazed, beneath the lintel — marvel-
ling to see all this anger, and abashed at beholding
me. His sudden appearance reminded me that I had
last seen him at Grenade in the Count's company, on
the day of my arrest. The surprise it had occasioned
me now returned upon seeing him so obviously and
'intimately seeking Chatellerault.

The Count turned on him in his anger.

"Well, popinjay?" he roared. "What do you want
with me?"

"Monsieur le Comte!" cried the other, in blent in-
dignation and reproach.

"You will perceive that you are come inoppor-
tunely," I put in. "Monsieur de Chatellerault is not
quite himself."

But my speech again drew his attention to my
presence, and the wonder grew in his eyes at finding
me there, for to him I was still Lesperon the rebel, and
he marvelled naturally that I should be at large.

Then in the corridor there was a sound of steps and
voices, and as I turned I beheld in the doorway, be-
hind Saint-Eustache, the faces of Castelroux, Miron-
sac, and my old acquaintance, the babbling, irre-
sponsible buffoon, La Fosse. From Mironsac he had
heard of my presence in Toulouse, and, piloted by
Castelroux, they were both come to seek me out. I'll
swear it was not thus they had looked to find me.

They pushed their way into the room, impelling
Saint-Eustache forward, and there were greetings ex-
changed and felicitations, whilst Chatellerault, curb-
ing his disorder, drew the Chevalier into a corner of
the room, and stood there listening to him.

At length I heard the Count exclaim —

i94 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

" Do as you please. Chevalier. If you have interests
of your own to serve, serve them. As for myself — I
am past being interested."

"But why, monsieur?" the chevalier inquired.

"Why?" echoed Chatellerault, his ferocity welling
up again. Then, swinging round, he came straight at
me, as a bull makes a charge.

"Monsieur de Bardelys!" he blazed.

"Bardelys!" gasped Saint-Eustache in the back-
ground.

"What now?" I inquired coldly, turning from my
friends.

"All that you said may be true, and I may be
doomed, but I swear before God that you shall not go
unpunished."

" I think, monsieur, that you run a grave risk of per-
juring yourself!" I laughed.

" You shall render me satisfaction ere we part!" he
cried.

" If you do not deem that paper satisfaction enough,
then, monsieur, forgive me, but your greed transcends
all possibility of being ever satisfied."

" The devil take your paper and your estates ! What
shall they profit me when I am dead?"

"They may profit your heirs," I suggested.

"How shall that profit me?"

"That is a riddle that I cannot pretend to elucidate."

"You laugh, you knave!" he snorted. Then, with
an abrupt change of manner, "You do not lack for
friends," said he. " Beg one of these gentlemen to act
for you, and if you are a man of honour let us step out
into the yard and settle the matter."

I shook my head.

M. DE CHATELLERAULT IS ANGRY 195

"I am so much a man of honour as to be careful
with whom I cross steel. I prefer to leave you to His
Majesty's vengeance; his headsman may be less
particular than am I. No, monsieur, on the whole, I
do not think that I can fight you."

His face grew a shade paler. It became grey; the
jaw was set, and the eyes were more out of symmetry
than I had ever seen them. Their glance approached
what is known in Italy as the mat'ocMo, and to pro-
tect themselves against the baneful influences of which
men carry charms. A moment he stood so, eyeing me.
Then, coming a step nearer —

"You do not think that you can fight me, eh? You
do not think it? Pardieu! How shall I make you
change your mind? To the insult of words you appear
impervious. You imagine your courage above dispute
because by a lucky accident you killed La Vertoile
some years ago, and the fame of it has attached to
you." In the intensity of his anger he was breathing
heavily, like a man overburdened. "You have been
living ever since by the reputation which that accident
gave you. Let us see if you can die by it, Monsieur de
Bardelys." And, leaning forward, he struck me on the
breast, so suddenly and so powerfully — for he was a
man of abnormal strength — that I must have fallen
but that La Fosse caught me in his arms.

"Kill him!" lisped the classic-minded fool. "Play
Theseus to this bull of Marathon."

Chatellerault stood back, his hands on his hips, his
head inclined towards his right shoulder, and an
insolent leer of expectancy upon his face.

"Will that resolve you?" he sneered.

"I will meet you," I answered, when I had re-

196 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

covered breath. "But I swear that I shall not help
you to escape the headsman."

He laughed harshly.

"Do I not know it?" he mocked. "How shall kill-
ing you help me to escape ? Come, messieurs, sortons.
At once!"

"Soit," I answered shortly; and thereupon we
crowded from the room, and went pele-mele down the
passage to the courtyard at the back.

CHAPTER XVI
SWORDS !

E, FOSSE led the way with me, his arm through
mine, swearing that he would be my second. He
had such a stomach for a fight, had this irresponsible,
irrepressible rhymester, that it mounted to the heights
of passion with him, and when I mentioned, in answer
to a hint dropped in connection with the edict, that I
had the King's sanction for this combat, he was nearly
mad with joy.

"Blood of La Fosse!" was his oath. "The honour
to stand by you shall be mine, my Bardelys ! You owe
it me, for am I not in part to blame for all this ado?
Nay, you'll not deny me. That gentleman yonder,
with the wild-cat moustaches and a name like a Gas-
con oath — that cousin of Mironsac's, I mean — has
the flair of a fight in his nostrils, and a craving to be in
it. But you'll grant me the honour, will you not?
Pardieu! It will earn me a place in history."

"Or the graveyard," quoth I, by way of cooling his
ardour.

"Peste! What an augury!" Then, with a laugh:
"But," he added, indicating Saint-Eustache, "that
long, lean saint — I forget of what he is patron —
hardly wears a murderous air."

To win peace from him, I promised that he should
stand by me. But the favour lost much of its value in
his eyes when presently I added that I did not wish

198 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

the seconds to engage, since the matter was of so very
personal a character.

Mironsac and Castelroux, assisted by Saint-Eu-
stache, closed the heavy porte-cochere, and so shut
us in from the observation of passers-by. The clang-
ing of those gates brought the landlord and a couple of
his knaves, and we were subjected to the prayers and
intercessions, to the stormings and ravings that are
ever the prelude of a stable-yard fight, but which in-
variably end, as these ended, in the landlord's with-
drawal to run for help to the nearest corps-de-garde.

"Now, my myrmillones," cried La Fosse in blood-
thirsty jubilation, "to work before the host returns/'

"Po' Cap de Diou!" growled Castelroux, "is this a
time for jests, master joker?"

"Jests?" I heard him retorting, as he assisted me to
doff my doublet. "Do I jest? Diable! you Gascons
are a slow-witted folk! I have a taste for allegory, my
friend, but that never yet was accounted so low a
thing as jesting."

At last we were ready, and I shifted the whole of my
attention to the short, powerful figure of Chatelle-
rault as he advanced upon me, stripped to the waist,
his face set and his eyes full of stern resolve. Despite
his low stature, and the breadth of frame which argue
sluggish motion, there was something very formidable
about the Count. His bared arms were great masses
of muscular flesh, and if his wrist were but half as
supple as it looked powerful, that alone should render
him a dangerous antagonist.

Yet I had no qualm of fear, no doubt, even, touch-
ing the issue. Not that I was an habitual ferrailleur.
As I have indicated, I had fought but one man in all

SWORDS! 199

my life. Nor yet am I of those who are said to know
no fear under any circumstances. Such men are not
truly brave; they are stupid and unimaginative, in
proof of which I will advance the fact that you may
incite a timid man to deeds of reckless valour by
drugging him with wine. But this is by the way. It
may be that the very regular fencing practice that in
Paris I was wont to take may so have ordered my
mind that the fact of meeting unbaited steel had little
power to move me.

Be that as it may, I engaged the Count without a
tremor either of the flesh or of the spirit. I was re-
solved to wait and let him open the play, that I might
have an opportunity of measuring his power and see-
ing how best I might dispose of him. I was determined
to do him no hurt, and to leave him, as I had sworn, to
the headsman; and so, either by pressure or by seiz-
ure, it was my aim to disarm him.

But on his side also he entered upon the duel with
all caution and wariness. From his rage I had hoped
for a wild, angry rush that should afford me an easy
opportunity of gaining my ends with him. Not so,
however. Now that he came with steel to defend
his life and to seek mine, he appeared to have realized
the importance of having keen wits to guide his hand;
and so he put his anger from him, and emerged calm
and determined from his whilom disorder.

Some preliminary passes we made from the first en-
gagement in the lines of tierce, each playing warily for
an opening, yet neither of us giving ground or betray-
ing haste or excitement. Now his blade slithered on
mine with a ceaseless tremor; his eyes watched mine
from under lowering brows, and with knees bent he

200 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

crouched like a cat making ready for a spring. Then
it came. Sudden as lightning was his disengage; he
darted under my guard, then over it, then back and
under it again, and stretching out in the lunge — his
double-feint completed — he straightened his arm to
drive home the botte.

But with a flying point I cleared his blade out of the
line of my body. There had been two sharp tinkles of
our meeting swords, and now Chatellerault stood at
his fullest stretch, the half of his steel past and behind
me, for just a fraction of time completely at my mercy.
Yet I was content to stand, and never move my blade
from his until he had recovered and we were back in
our first position once again.

I heard the deep bass of Castelroux's "Mordioux!"
the sharp gasp of fear from Saint-Eustache, who al-
ready in imagination beheld his friend stretched life-
less on the ground, and the cry of mortification from
La Fosse as the Count recovered. But I heeded these
things little. As I have said, to kill the Count was not
my object. It had been wise, perhaps, in Chatelle-
rault to have appreciated that fact; but he did not.
From the manner in which he now proceeded to press
me, I was assured that he set his having recovered
guard to slowness on my part, never thinking of the
speed that had been necessary to win myself such an
opening as I had obtained.

My failure to run him through in that moment of
jeopardy inspired him with a contempt of my sword-
play. This he now made plain by the recklessness
with which he fenced, in his haste to have done ere we
might chance to be interrupted. Of this recklessness I
suddenly availed myself to make an attempt at dis-

SWORDS! 201

arming him. I turned aside a vicious thrust by a close
— a dangerously close — parry, and whilst in the act
of encircling his blade I sought by pressure to carry it
out of his hand. I was within an ace of succeeding,
yet he avoided me, and doubled back.

He realized then, perhaps, that I was not quite so
contemptible an antagonist as he had been imagin-
ing, and he went back to his earlier and more cau-
tious tactics. Then I changed my plans. I simulated
an attack, and drove him hard for some moments.
Strong he was, but there were advantages of reach and
suppleness with me, and even these advantages apart,
had I aimed at his life, I could have made short work
of him. But the game I played was fraught with perils
to myself, and once I was in deadly danger, and as
near death from the sword as a man may go and live.
My attack had lured him, as I desired that it should,
into making a riposte. He did so, and as his blade
twisted round mine and came slithering at me, I
again carried it off by encircling it, and again I exerted
pressure to deprive him of it. But this time I was
farther from success than before. He laughed at the
•attempt, as with a suddenness that I had been far from
expecting he disengaged again, and his point darted
like a snake upwards at my throat.

I parried that thrust, but I only parried it when it
was within some three inches of my neck, and even as
I turned it aside it missed me as narrowly as it might
without tearing my skin. The imminence of the peril
had been such that, as we mutually recovered, I found
a cold sweat bathing me.

After that, I resolved to abandon the attempt to
disarm him by pressure, and I turned my attention

202 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

to drawing him into a position that might lend itself
to seizure. But even as I was making up my mind to
this — we were engaged in sixte at the time — I saw
a sudden chance. His point was held low while he
watched me; so low that his arm was uncovered and
my point was in line with it. To see the opening, to
estimate it, and to take my resolve was all the work
of a fraction of a second. The next instant I had
straightened my elbow, my blade shot out in a light-
ning stroke and transfixed his sword-arm.

There was a yell of pain, followed by a deep growl
of fury, as, wounded but not vanquished, the enraged
Count caught his falling sword in his left hand, and
whilst my own blade was held tight in the bone of
his right arm, he sought to run me through. I leapt
quickly aside, and then, before he could renew the at-
tempt, my friends had fallen upon him and wrenched
his sword from his hand and mine from his arm.

It would ill have become me to taunt a man in his
sorry condition, else might I now have explained to
him what I had meant when I had promised to leave
him for the headsman even though I did consent to
fight him.

Mironsac, Castelroux, and La Fosse stood babbling
around me, but I paid no heed either to Castelroux's
patois or to La Fosse's misquotations of classic au-
thors. The combat had been protracted, and the
methods I had pursued had been of a very exhausting
nature. I leaned now against the porte-cochere, and
mopped myself vigorously. Then Saint-Eustache,
who was engaged in binding up his principal's arm,
called to La Fosse.

I followed my second with my eyes as he went

SWORDS! 203

across to Chatellerault. The Count stood white, his
lips compressed, no doubt from the pain his arm was
causing him. Then his voice floated across to me as
he addressed La Fosse.

"You will do me the favour, monsieur, to inform
your friend that this was no first-blood combat, but
one a outrance. I fence as well with my left arm as
with my right, and if Monsieur de Bardelys will do me
the honour to engage again, I shall esteem it."

La Fosse bowed and came over with the message
that already we had heard.

"I fought," said I in answer, "in a spirit very
different from that by which Monsieur de Chatelle-
rault appears to have been actuated. He made it in-
cumbent upon me to afford proof of my courage. That
proof I have afforded; I decline to do more. More-
over, as Monsieur de Chatellerault himself must per-
ceive, the light is failing us, and in a few minutes it
will be too dark for sword-play."

"In a few minutes there will be need for none, mon-
sieur," shouted Chatellerault, to save time. He was
boastful to the end.

"Here, monsieur, in any case, come those who will
resolve the question," I answered, pointing to the
door of the inn.

As I spoke, the landlord stepped into the yard,
followed by an officer and a half-dozen soldiers.
These were no ordinary keepers of the peace, but
musketeers of the guard, and at sight of them I knew
that their business was not to interrupt a duel, but to
arrest my erstwhile opponent upon a much graver
charge.

The officer advanced straight to Chatellerault.

204 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

"In the King's name, Monsieur le Comte," said he.
"I demand your sword."

It may be that at bottom I was still a man of soft
heart, unfeeling cynic though they accounted me; for
upon remarking the misery and gloom that spread
upon Chatellerault's face I was sorry for him, notwith-
standing the much that he had schemed against me.
Of what his fate would be he could have no shadow of
doubt. He knew — none better — how truly the King
loved me, and how he would punish such an attempt
as had been made upon my life, to say nothing of the
prostitution of justice of which he had been guilty, and
for which alone he had earned the penalty of death.

He stood a moment with bent head, the pain of
his arm possibly forgotten in the agony of his spirit.
Then, straightening himself suddenly, with a proud,
half-scornful air, he looked the officer straight be-
tween the eyes.

" You desire my sword, monsieur? " he inquired.

The musketeer bowed respectfully.

" Saint-Eustache, will you do me the favour to give
it to me?"

And while the Chevalier picked up the rapier from
the ground where it had been flung, that man waited
with an outward calm for which at the moment I
admired him, as we must ever admire a tranquil bear-
ing in one smitten by a great adversity. And than
this I can conceive few greater. He had played for
much, and he had lost everything. Ignominy, degra-
dation, and the block were all that impended for him
in this world, and they were very imminent.

He took the sword from the Chevalier. He held it
for a second by the hilt, like one in thought, like one

SWORDS! 205

who is resolving upon something, whilst the mus-
keteer awaited his good pleasure with that deference
which all gentle minds must accord to the unfor-
tunate.

Still holding his rapier, he raised his eyes for a
second and let them rest on me with a grim malev-
olence. Then he uttered a short laugh, and, shrug-
ging his shoulders, he transferred his grip to the blade,
as if about to offer the hilt to the officer. Holding it
so, halfway betwixt point and quillons, he stepped
suddenly back, and before any there could put forth a
hand to stay him, he had set the pummel on the
ground and the point at his breast, and so dropped
upon it and impaled himself.

A cry went up from every throat, and we sprang
towards him. He rolled over on his side, and with a
grin of exquisite pain, yet in words of unconquerable
derision —

"You may have my sword now, Monsieur 1'Offi-
cier," he said, and sank back, swooning.

With an oath, the musketeer stepped forward. He
obeyed Chatellerault to the letter, by kneeling beside
him and carefully withdrawing the sword. Then he
ordered a couple of his men to take up the body.

"Is he dead?" asked some one; and some one else
replied, "Not yet: but he soon will be."

Two of the musketeers bore him into the inn and
laid him on the floor of the very room in which, an
hour or so ago, he had driven a bargain with Roxa-
lanne. A cloak rolled into a pillow was thrust under
his head, and there we left him in charge of his cap-
tors, the landlord, Saint-Eustache, and La Fosse —
the latter inspired, I doubt not, by that morbidity

206 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

which is so often a feature of the poetic mind, and
which impelled him now to witness the death-agony
of my Lord of Chatellerault.

Myself, having resumed my garments, I disposed
myself to repair at once to the Hotel de TEpee, there
to seek Roxalanne, that I might set her fears and
sorrows at rest, and that I might at last make my
confession.

As we stepped out into the street, where the dusk
was now thickening, I turned to Castelroux to inquire
how Saint-Eustache came into Chatellerault's com-
pany.

"He is of the family of the Iscariot, I should opine/*
answered the Gascon. "As soon as he had news that
Chatellerault was come to Languedoc as the King's
Commissioner, he repaired to him to offer his services
in the work of bringing rebels to justice. He urged
that his thorough acquaintance with the province
should render him of value to the King, as also that he
had had particular opportunities of becoming ac-
quainted with many treasonable dealings on the part
of men whom the State was far from suspecting."

"Mort Dieu!" I cried, "I had suspected something
of such a nature. You do well to call him of the family
of the Iscariot. He is more so than you imagine. I
have knowledge of this — ample knowledge. He was
until lately a rebel himself, and himself a follower of
Gaston d'Orleans — though of a lukewarm quality.
What reasons have driven him to such work, do you
know?"

"The same reason that impelled his forefather,
Judas of old. The desire to enrich himself. For every
hitherto unsuspected rebel that shall be brought

SWORDS! 207

to justice and whose treason shall be proven by his
agency, he claims the half of that rebel's confiscated
estates."

"Diable!" I exclaimed. "And does the Keeper of
the Seals sanction this?"

"Sanction it? Saint-Eustache holds a commission,
has a free hand and a company of horse to follow him
in his rebel-hunting."

"Has he done much so far?" was my next question.

"He has reduced half a dozen noblemen and their
families. The wealth he must thereby have amassed
should be very considerable, indeed."

"To-morrow, Castelroux, I will see the King in con-
nection with this pretty gentleman, and not only shall
we find him a dungeon deep and dank, but we shall see
that he disgorges his blood-money."

"If you can prove his treason you will be doing
blessed work," returned Castelroux. " Until to-mor-
row, then, for here is the Hotel de 1'Epee."

From the broad doorway of an imposing building a
warm glow of light issued out and spread itself fan-
wise across the ill-paved street. In this — like bats
about a lamp — flitted the black figures of gaping
urchins and other stragglers, and into this I now
passed, having taken leave of my companions.

I mounted the steps and I was about to cross the
threshold, when suddenly above a burst of laughter
that greeted my ears I caught the sound of a singu-
larly familiar voice. This seemed raised at present
to address such company as might be within. One
moment of doubt had I — for it was a month since last
I had heard those soft, unctuous accents. Then I was
assured that the voice I heard was, indeed, the voice

208 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

of my steward Ganymede. Castelroux's messenger
had found him at last, it seemed, and had brought him
to Toulouse.

I was moved to spring into the room and greet that
old retainer for whom, despite the gross and sensuous
ways that with advancing years were claiming hin
more and more, I had a deep attachment. But even as
I was on the point of entering, not only his voice, but
the very words that he was uttering floated out to my
ears, and they were of a quality that held me there to
play the hidden listener for the second time in my life
in one and the same day.

CHAPTER XVII

THE BABBLING OF GANYMEDE

NEVER until that hour, as I stood in the porch of
the Hotel de 1'Epee, hearkening to my hench-
man's narrative and to the bursts of laughter which
ever and anon it provoked from his numerous listeners,
had I dreamed of the raconteur talents which Rode-
nard might boast. Yet was I very far from being
appreciative now that I discovered them, for the
story that he told was of how one Marcel Saint-
Pol, Marquis de Bardelys, had laid a wager with
the Comte de Chatellerault that he would woo and
win Mademoiselle de Lavedan to wife within three
months. Nor did he stop there. Rodenard, it would
seem, was well informed; he had drawn all knowl-
edge of the state of things from Castelroux's mes-
senger, and later — I know not from whom — at
Toulouse, since his arrival.

He regaled the company, therefore, with a recital of
our finding the dying Lesperon, and of how I had gone
off alone, and evidently assumed the name and role of
that proscribed rebel, and thus conducted my wooing
under sympathy-inspiring circumstances at Lavedan.
Then came, he announced, the very cream of the jest,
when I was arrested as Lesperon and brought to Tou-
louse and to trial in Lesperon's stead; he told them
how I had been sentenced to death in the other man's
place, and he assured them that I would certainly
have been beheaded upon the morrow but that news

210 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

had been borne to him — Rodenard — of my plight,
and he was come to deliver me.

My first impulse upon hearing him tell of the wager
had been to stride into the room and silence him by
my coming. That I did not obey that impulse was
something that presently I was very bitterly to re-
gret. How it came that I did not I scarcely know. I
was tempted, perhaps, to see how far this henchman
whom for years I had trusted was unworthy of that
trust. And so, there in the porch, I stayed until he had
ended by telling the company that he was on his way
to inform the King — who by great good chance was
that day arrived in Toulouse — of the mistake that
had been made, and thus obtain my immediate en-
largement and earn my undying gratitude.

Again I was on the point of entering to administer a
very stern reproof to that talkative rogue, when of a
sudden there was a commotion within. I caught a
scraping of chairs, a dropping of voices, and then
suddenly I found myself confronted by Roxalanne de
Lavedan herself, issuing with a page and a woman in
attendance.

For just a second her eyes rested on me, and the
light coming through the doorway at her back boldly
revealed my countenance. And a very startled counte-
nance it must have been, for in that fraction of time I
knew that she had heard all that Rodenard had been
relating. Under that instant's glance of her eyes I felt
myself turn pale; a shiver ran through me, and the
sweat started cold upon my brow. Then her gaze
passed from me, and looked beyond into the street, as
though she had not known me; whether in her turn
she paled or reddened I cannot say, for the light was

THE BABBLING OF GANYMEDE 211

too uncertain. Next followed what seemed to me an
interminable pause, although, indeed, it can have been
no more than a matter of seconds — aye, and of but
few. Then, her gown drawn well aside, she passed me
in that same irrecognizing way, whilst I, abashed,
shrank back into the shadows of the porch, burning
with shame and rage and humiliation.

From under her brows her woman glanced at me in-
quisitively; her liveried page, his nose in the air, eyed
me so pertly that I was hard put to it not to hasten
with my foot his descent of the steps.

At last they were gone, and from the outside the
shrill voice of her page was wafted to me. He was
calling to the ostler for her carriage. Standing, in my
deep mortification, where she had passed me, I con-
jectured from that demand that she was journeying to
Lavedan.

She knew now how she had been cheated on every
hand, first by me and later, that very afternoon, by
Chatellerault, and her resolve to quit Toulouse could
but signify that she was done with me for good. That
it had surprised her to find me at large already, I
fancied I had seen in her momentary glance, but her
pride had been quick to conquer and stifle all signs of
that surprise.

I remained where she had passed me until her
coach had rumbled away into the night, and during
the moments that elapsed I had stood arguing with
myself and resolving upon my course of action. But
despair was fastening upon me.

I had come to the Hotel de 1'Epee, exulting, joyous,
and confident of victory. I had come to confess every-
thing to her, and by virtue of what I had done that

212 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

confession was rendered easy. I could have said to
her: "The woman whom I wagered to win was not
you, Roxalanne, but a certain Mademoiselle de Lave-
dan. Your love I have won, but that you may foster
no doubts of my intentions, I have paid my wager and
acknowledge defeat. I have made over to Chatelle-
rault and to his heirs for all time my estates of Bar-
delys."

Oh, I had rehearsed it in my mind, and I was
confident — I knew — that I should win her. And
now — the disclosure of that shameful traffic coming
from other lips than mine had ruined everything by
forestalling my avowal.

Rodenard should pay for it — by God, he should !
Once again did I become a prey to the passion of anger
which I have ever held to be unworthy in a gentleman,
but to which it would seem that I was growing ac-
customed to give way. The ostler was mounting the
steps at the moment. He carried in his hand a stout
horsewhip with a long knotted thong. Hastily mutter-
ing a "By your leave," I snatched it from him and
sprang into the room.

My intendant was still talking of me. The room
was crowded, for Rodenard alone had brought with
him my twenty followers. One of these looked up as I
brushed past him, and uttered a cry of surprise upon
recognizing me. But Rodenard talked on, engrossed
in his theme to the exclusion of all else.

" Monsieur le Marquis," he was saying, " is a gentle-
man whom it is, indeed, an honour to serve -

A scream burst from him with the last word, for the
lash of my whip had burnt a wheal upon his well-fed
sides.

THE BABBLING OF GANYMEDE 213

"It is an honour that shall be yours no more, you
dog!" I cried.

He leapt high into the air as my whip cut him again.
He swung round, his face twisted with pain, his flabby
cheeks white with fear, and his eyes wild with anger,
for as yet the full force of the situation had not been
borne in upon him. Then, seeing me there, and catch-
ing something of the awful passion that must have
been stamped upon my face, he dropped on his knees
and cried out something that I did not understand —
for I was past understanding much just then.

The lash whistled through the air again and caught
him about the shoulders. He writhed and roared in
his anguish of both flesh and spirit. But I was pitiless.
He had ruined my life for me with his talking, and, as
God lived, he should pay the only price that it lay in
his power to pay — the price of physical suffering.
Again and again my whip hissed about his head and
cut into his soft white flesh, whilst roaring for mercy
he moved and rocked on his knees before me. In-
stinctively he approached me to hamper my move-
ments, whilst I moved back to give my lash the better
play. He held out his arms and joined his fat hands in
supplication, but the lash caught them in its sinuous
tormenting embrace, and started a red wheal across
their whiteness. He tucked them into his armpits with
a scream, and fell prone upon the ground.

Then I remember that some of my men essayed to
restrain me, which to my passion was as the wind to a
blaze. I cracked my whip about their heads, com-
manding them to keep their distance lest they were
minded to share his castigation. And so fearful an air
must I have worn, that, daunted, they hung back and
watched their leader's punishment in silence.

2i4 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

When I think of it now, I take no little shame at the
memory of how I beat him. It is, indeed, with deep
reluctance and yet deeper shame that I have brought
myself to write of it. If I offend you with this account
of that horsewhipping, let necessity be my apology;
for the horsewhipping itself I have, unfortunately,
no apology, save the blind fury that obsessed me —
which is no apology at all.

Upon the morrow I repented me already with much
bitterness. But in that hour I knew no reason. I
was mad, and of my madness was born this harsh
brutality.

u You would talk of me and my affairs in a tavern,
you hound!" I cried, out of breath both by virtue of
my passion and my exertions. "Let the memory of
this act as a curb upon your poisonous tongue in
future."

" Monseigneur ! " he screamed. " Misericorde, mon-
seigneur!"

"Aye, you shall have mercy — just so much mercy
as you deserve. Have I trusted you all these years,
and did my father trust you before me, for this ? Have
you grown sleek and fat and smug in my service that
you should requite me thus? Sangdieu, Rodenard!
My father had hanged you for the half of the talk-
ing that you have done this night. You dog! You
miserable knave!"

"Monseigneur," he shrieked again, "forgive! For
your sainted mother's sake, forgive! Monsiegneur, I
did not know -

"But you are learning, cur; you are learning by the
pain of your fat carcase; is it not so, carrion?"

He sank down, his strength exhausted, a limp,

THE BABBLING OF GANYM&DE 215

moaning, bleeding mass of flesh, into which my whip
still cut relentlessly.

I have a picture in my mind of that ill-lighted room,
of the startled faces on which the flickering glimmer of
the candles shed odd shadows; of the humming and
cracking of my whip; of my own voice raised in oaths
and epithets of contempt; of Rodenard's screams; of
the cries raised here and there in remonstrance or in
entreaty, and of some more bold that called shame
upon me. Then others took up that cry of "Shame!"
so that at last I paused and stood there drawn up to
my full height, as if in challenge. Towering above the
heads of any in that room, I held my whip menacingly.
I was unused to criticism, and their expressions of
condemnation roused me.

"Who questions my right?" I demanded arro-
gantly, whereupon they one and all fell silent. "If
any here be bold enough to step out, he shall have
my answer." Then, as none responded, I signified my
contempt for them by a laugh.

" Monseigneur ! " wailed Rodenard at my feet, his
voice growing feeble.

By way of answer, I gave him a final cut, then I
flung the whip — which had grown ragged in the fray
— back to the ostler from whom I had borrowed it.

"Let that suffice you, Rodenard," I said, touching
him with my foot. "See that I never set eyes upon
you again, if you cherish your miserable life!"

"Not that, monseigneur!" groaned the wretch.
"Oh, not that! You have punished me; you have
whipped me until I cannot stand; forgive me, mon-
seigneur, forgive me now!"

"I have forgiven you, but I never wish to see you

216 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

again, lest I should forget that I have forgiven you.
Take him away, some of you," I bade my men, and in
swift, silent obedience two of them stepped forward
and bore the groaning, sobbing fellow from the room.
When that was done —

"Host," I commanded, "prepare me a room.
Attend me, a couple of you."

I gave orders thereafter for the disposal of my
baggage, some of which my lacqueys brought up to
the chamber that the landlord had in haste made
ready for me. In that chamber I sat until very late, a
prey to the utmost misery and despair. My rage being
spent, I might have taken some thought for poor
Ganymede and his condition, but my own affairs
crowded over-heavily upon my mind, and sat the un-
disputed rulers of my thoughts that night.

At one moment I considered journeying to Lavedan,
only to dismiss the idea the next. What could it avail
me now? Would Roxalanne believe the tale I had to
tell? Would she not think, naturally enough, that I
was but making the best of the situation, and that my
avowal of the truth of a story which it was not in my
power to deny was not spontaneous, but forced from
me by circumstances ? No, there was nothing more to
be done. A score of amours had claimed my attention
in the past and received it; yet there was not one of
those affairs whose miscarriage would have afforded
me the slightest concern or mortification. It seemed
like an irony, like a Dies iray that it should have been
left to this first true passion of my life to have gone
awry.

I slept ill when at last I sought my bed, and through
the night I nursed my bitter grief, huddling to me the

THE BABBLING OF GANYMEDE 217

corpse of the love she had borne me as a mother may
the corpse of her first-born.

On the morrow I resolved to leave Toulouse — to
quit this province wherein so much had befallen me —
and repair to Beaugency, there to grow old in misan-
thropical seclusion. I had done with Courts, I had
done with love and with women; I had done, it seemed
to me, with life itself. Prodigal had it been in gifts
that I had not sought of it. It had spread my table
with the richest offerings, but they had been little to
my palate, and I had nauseated quickly. And now,
when here in this remote corner of France it had
shown me the one prize I coveted, it had been swift to
place it beyond my reach, thereby sowing everlasting
discontent and misery in my hitherto pampered heart.

I saw Castelroux that day, but I said no word to him
of my affliction. He brought me news of Chatellerault.
The Count was lying in a dangerous condition at the
Auberge Royale, and might not be moved. The
physician attending him all but despaired of his life.

"He is asking to see you," said Castelroux.

But I was not minded to respond. For all that he
had deeply wronged me, for all that I despised him
very cordially, the sight of him in his present condition
might arouse my pity, and I was in no mood to waste
upon such a one as Chatellerault — even on his death-
bed — a quality of which I had so dire a need just
then for my own case.

" I will not go," said I, after deliberation. "Tell him
from me that I forgive him freely — if it be that he
seeks my forgiveness; tell him that I bear him no
rancour, and — that he had better make his will, to
save me trouble hereafter, if he should chance to die."

218 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

I said this because I had no mind, if he should
perish intestate, to go in quest of his next heirs and
advise them that my late Picardy estates were now
their property.

Castelroux sought yet to persuade me to visit the
Count, but I held firmly to my resolve.

"I am leaving Toulouse to-day," I announced.

"Whither do you go?"

"To hell, or to Beaugency — I scarce know which,
nor does it matter."

He looked at me in surprise, but, being a man of
breeding, asked no questions upon matters that he
accounted secret.

"But the King?" he ventured presently.

"His Majesty has already dispensed me from my
duties by him."

Nevertheless, I did not go that day. I maintained
the intention until sunset; then, seeing that it was too
late, I postponed my departure until the morrow. I
can assign no reason for my dallying mood. Perhaps it
sprang from the inertness that pervaded me, perhaps
some mysterious hand detained me. Be that as it may,
that I remained another night at the Hotel de 1'Epee
was one of those contingencies which, though slight
and seemingly inconsequential in themselves, lead to
great issues. Had I departed that day for Beaugency,
it is likely that you had never heard of me — least-
ways, not from my own pen — for in what so far I
have told you, without that which is to follow, there
is haply little that was worth the labour of setting
down.

In the morning, then, I set out; but having started
late, we got no farther than Grenade, where we lay the

THE BABBLING OF GANYM&DE 219

night once more at the Hotel de la Couronne. And
so, through having delayed my departure by a single
day, did it come to pass that a message reached me be-
fore it might have been too late.

It was high noon of the morrow. Our horses stood
saddled; indeed, some of my men were already
mounted — for I was not minded to disband them
until Beaugency was reached — and my two coaches
were both ready for the journey. The habits of a life-
time are not so easy to abandon even when Necessity
raises her compelling voice.

I was in the act of settling my score with the land-
lord when of a sudden there were quick steps in the
passage, the clank of a rapier against the wall, and a
voice — the voice of Castelroux — calling excitedly —

"Bardelys! Monsieur de Bardelys!"

"What brings you here?" I cried in greeting, as he
stepped into the room.

"Are you still for Beaugency?" he asked sharply,
throwing back his head.

"Why, yes," I answered, wondering at this excite-
ment.

"Then you have seen nothing of Saint-Eustache
and his men?"

"Nothing."

"Yet they must have passed this way not many
hours ago." Then tossing his hat on the table and
speaking with sudden vehemence: "If you have any
interest in the family of Lavedan, you will return upon
the instant to Toulouse."

The mention of Lavedan was enough to quicken my
pulses. Yet in the past two days I had mastered resig-
nation, and in doing that we school ourselves to much

220 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

restraint. I turned slowly, and surveyed the little
Captain attentively. His black eyes sparkled, and his
moustaches bristled with excitement. Clearly he had
news of import. I turned to the landlord.

"Leave us, Monsieur 1'Hote," said I shortly; and
when he had departed, "What of the Lavedan family,
Castelroux?" I inquired as calmly as I might.

"The Chevalier de Saint-Eustache left Toulouse at
six o'clock this morning for Lavedan."

Swift the suspicion of his errand broke upon my
mind.

"He has betrayed the Vicomte?" I half inquired,
half asserted.

Castelroux nodded. "He has obtained a warrant
for his apprehension from the Keeper of the Seals, and
is gone to execute it. In the course of a few days Lave-
dan will be in danger of being no more than a name.
This Saint-Eustache is driving a brisk trade, by God,
and some fine prizes have already fallen to his lot.
But if you add them all together, they are not likely to
yield as much as this his latest expedition. Unless
you intervene, Bardelys, the Vicomte de Lavedan is
doomed and his family houseless."

" I will intervene," I cried. " By God, I will ! And as
for Saint-Eustache — he was born under a propitious
star, indeed, if he escapes the gallows. He little
dreams that I am still to be reckoned with. There,
Castelroux, I will start for Lavedan at once."

Already I was striding to the door, when the Gascon
called me back.

"What good will that do?" he asked. "Were it not
better first to return to Toulouse and obtain a counter-
warrant from the King?"

THE BABBLING OF GANYMEDE 221

There was wisdom in his words — much wisdom.
But my blood was afire, and I was in too hot a haste to
reason.

"Return to Toulouse?" I echoed scornfully. "A
waste of time, Captain. No, I will go straight to
Lavedan. I need no counter-warrant. I know too
much of this Chevalier's affairs, and my very presence
should be enough to stay his hand. He is as foul a
traitor as you'll find in France; but for the moment
God bless him for a very opportune knave. Gilles!" I
called, throwing wide the door. "Gilles!"

" Monseigneur," he answered, hastening to me.

"Put back the carriages and saddle me a horse," I
commanded. "And bid your fellows mount at once
and await me in the courtyard. We are not going to
Beaugency, Gilles. We ride north — to Lavedan."

CHAPTER XVIII
SAINT-EUSTACHE IS OBSTINATE

ON the occasion of my first visit to Lavedan I had
disregarded — or, rather, Fate had contrived
that I should disregard — Chatellerault's suggestion
that I should go with all the panoply of power — with
my followers, my liveries, and my equipages to com-
pose the magnificence all France had come to associate
with my name, and thus dazzle by my brilliant lustre
the lady I was come to win. As you may remember, I
had crept into the chateau like a thief in the night,
wounded, bedraggled, and of miserable aspect, seek-
ing to provoke compassion rather than admiration.

Not so now that I made my second visit. I availed
myself of all the splendour to which I owed my title
of "Magnificent," and rode into the courtyard of
the Chateau de Lavedan preceded by twenty well-
mounted knaves wearing the gorgeous Saint-Pol
liveries of scarlet and gold, with the Bardelys es-
cutcheon broidered on the breasts of their doublets
— on a field or a bar azure surcharged by three lilies
of the field. They were armed with swords and mus-
ketoons, and had more the air of a royal bodyguard
than of a company of attendant servants.

Our coming was in a way well timed. I doubt if we
could have stayed the execution of Saint-Eustache's
warrant even had we arrived earlier. But for effect —
to produce a striking coup de theatre — we could not
have come more opportunely.

SAINT-EUSTACHE IS OBSTINATE 223

A coach stood in the quadrangle, at the foot of the
chateau steps: down these the Vicomte was descend-
ing, with the Vicomtesse — grim and blasphemant as
ever — on one side, and his daughter, white of face and
with tightly compressed lips, on the other. Between
these two women — his wife and his child — as dif-
ferent in body as they were different in soul, came
Lavedan with a firm step, a good colour, and a look of
well-bred, lofty indifference to his fate.

He disposed himself to enter the carriage which was
to bear him to prison with much the same air he would
have assumed had his destination been a royal levee.

Around the coach were grouped a score of men
of Saint-Eustache's company -- half soldiers, half
ploughboys — ill-garbed and indifferently accoutred
in dull breastplates and steel caps, many of which
were rusted. By the carriage door stood the long,
lank figure of the Chevalier himself, dressed with his
wonted care, and perfumed, curled, and beribboned
beyond belief. His weak, boyish face sought by
scowls and by the adoption of a grim smile to assume
an air of martial ferocity.

Such was the grouping in the quadrangle when my
men, with Gilles at their head, thundered across the
drawbridge, giving pause to those within, and draw-
ing upon themselves the eyes of all, as they rode, two
by two, under the old-world arch of the keep into the
courtyard. And Gilles, who knew our errand, and who
was as ready-witted a rogue as ever rode with me, took
in the situation at a glance. Knowing how much I
desired to make a goodly show, he whispered an order.
This resulted in the couples dividing at the gateway,
one going to the left and one to the right, so that as

224 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

they came they spread themselves in a crescent, and,
drawing rein, they faced forward, confronting and
half surrounding the Chevalier's company.

As each couple appeared, the curiosity — the un-
easiness, probably — of Saint-Eustache and his men
had increased, and their expectancy was on tiptoe to
see what lord it was went abroad with such regal
pomp, when I appeared in the gateway and advanced
at the trot into the middle of the quadrangle. There I
drew rein and doffed my hat to them as they stood,
open-mouthed and gaping one and all. If it was a
theatrical display, a parade worthy of a tilt-ground, it
was yet a noble and imposing advent, and their gaping
told me that it was not without effect. The men
looked uneasily at the Chevalier; the Chevalier looked
uneasily at his men; mademoiselle, very pale, lowered
her eyes and pressed her lips yet more tightly; the
Vicomtesse uttered an oath of astonishment; whilst
Lavedan, too dignified to manifest surprise, greeted
me with a sober bow.

Behind them on the steps I caught sight of a group
of domestics, old Anatole standing slightly in advance
of his fellows, and wondering, no doubt, whether this
were, indeed, the bedraggled Lesperon of a little while
ago — for if I had thought of pomp in the display of
my lacqueys, no less had I considered it in the decking
of my own person. Without any of the ribbons and
fopperies that mark the coxcomb, yet was I clad,
plumed, and armed with a magnificence such as I'll
swear had not been seen within the grey walls of that
old castle in the lifetime of any of those that were now
present.

Gilles leapt from his horse as I drew rein, and

SAINT-EUSTACHE IS OBSTINATE 225

hastened to hold my stirrup, with a murmured " Mon-
seigneur," which title drew a fresh astonishment into
the eyes of the beholders.

I advanced leisurely towards Saint-Eustache, and
addressed him with such condescension as I might a
groom, for to impress and quell a man of this type
your best weapon is the arrogance that a nobler spirit
would resent.

"A world of odd meetings this, Saint-Eustache," I
smiled disdainfully. "A world of strange comings and
goings, and of strange transformations. The last time
we were here we stood mutually as guests of Monsieur
le Vicomte; at present you appear to be officiating as
a — a tipstaff."

"Monsieur!" He coloured, and he uttered the
word in accents of awakening resentment. I looked
into his eyes, coldly, impassively, as if waiting to hear
what he might have to add, and so I stayed until his
glance fell and his spirit was frozen in him. He knew
me, and he knew how much I was to be feared. A
word from me to the King might send him to the
wheel. It was upon this I played. Presently, as his
eye fell —

" Is your business with me, Monsieur de Bardelys ? "
he asked, and at that utterance of my name there was
a commotion on the steps, whilst the Vicomte started,
and his eyes frowned upon me, and the Vicomtesse
looked up suddenly to scan me with a fresh interest.
She beheld at last in the flesh the gentleman who had
played so notorious a part, ten years ago, in that
scandal connected with the Duchesse de Bourgogne,
of which she never tired of reciting the details. And
think that she had sat at table with him day by day

226 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

and been unconscious of that momentous fact! Such,
I make no doubt, was what passed through her mind
at the moment, and, to judge from her expression,
I should say that the excitement of beholding the
Magnificent Bardelys had for the nonce eclipsed even
her husband's condition and the imminent sequestra-
tion of Lavedan.

"My business is with you, Chevalier," said I. "It
relates to your mission here."

His jaw fell. " You wish — ?"

"To desire you to withdraw your men and quit
Lavedan at once, abandoning the execution of your

warrant/1

He flashed me a look of impotent hate. " You know
of the existence of my warrant, Monsieur de Bardelys,
and you must therefore realize that a royal mandate
alone can exempt me from delivering Monsieur de
Lavedan to the Keeper of the Seals."

"My only warrant," I answered, somewhat baffled,
but far from abandoning hope, "is my word. You
shall say to the Garde des Sceaux that you have done
this upon the authority of the Marquis de Bardelys,
and you have my promise that His Majesty shall con-
firm my action."

In saying that I said too much, as I was quickly to
realize.

"His Majesty will confirm it, monsieur?" he said
interrogatively, and he shook his head. "That is a
risk I dare not run. My warrant sets me under im-
perative obligations which I must discharge — you
will see the justice of what I state."

His tone was all humility, all subservience, never-
theless it was firm to the point of being hard. But my

SAINT-EUSTACHE IS OBSTINATE 227

last card, the card upon which I was depending, was
yet to be played.

"Will you do me the honour to step aside with me,
Chevalier?" I commanded rather than besought.

"At your service, sir," said he; and I drew him out
of earshot of those others. >

"Now, Saint-Eustache, we can talk," said I, with
an abrupt change of manner from the coldly arrogant
to the coldly menacing. "I marvel greatly at your
temerity in pursuing this Iscariot business after learn-
ing who I am, at Toulouse two nights ago."

He clenched his hands, and his weak face hardened.

"I would beg you to consider your expressions,
monsieur, and to control them," said he in a thick
voice.

I vouchsafed him a stare of freezing amazement.
"You will no doubt remember in what capacity I find
you employed. Nay, keep your hands still, Saint-
Eustache. I don't fight catchpolls, and if you give me
trouble my men are yonder." And I jerked my thumb
over my shoulder. "And now to business. I am not
minded to talk all day. I was saying that I marvel at
your temerity, and more particularly at your having
laid information against Monsieur de Lavedan, and
having come here to arrest him, knowing, as you must
know, that I am interested in the Vicomte."

"I have heard of that interest, monsieur," said he,
with a sneer for which I could have struck him.

"This act of yours," I pursued, ignoring his inter-
polation, "savours very much of flying in the face of
Destiny. It almost seems to me as if you were defying

me."

His lip trembled, and his eyes shunned my glance.

228 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

"Indeed — indeed, monsieur — " he was protest-
ing, when I cut him short.

"You cannot be so great a fool but that you must
realize that if I tell the King what I know of you, you
will be stripped of your ill-gotten gains, and broken on
the wheel for a double traitor — a betrayer of your
fellow-rebels."

"But you will not do that, monsieur?" he cried.
"It would be unworthy in you."

At that I laughed in his face. "Heart of God! Are
you to be what you please, and do you still expect
that men shall be nice in dealing with you ? I would do
this thing, and, by my faith, Monsieur de Eustache,
I will do it, if you compel me!"

He reddened and moved his foot uneasily. Perhaps
I did not take the best way with him, after all. I
might have confined myself to sowing fear in his heart;
that alone might have had the effect I desired; by
visiting upon, him at the same time the insults I could
not repress, I may have aroused his resistance, and
excited his desire above all else to thwart me.

"What do you want of me?" he demanded, with a
sudden arrogance which almost cast mine into the
shade.

"I want you," said I, deeming the time ripe to
make a plain tale of it, "to withdraw your men, and
to ride back to Toulouse without Monsieur de Lave-
dan, there to confess to the Keeper of the Seals that
your suspicions were unfounded, and that you have
culled evidence that the Vicomte has had no relations
with Monsieur the King's brother."

He looked at me in amazement — amusedly, al-
most.

SAINT-EUSTACHE IS OBSTINATE 229

"A likely story that to bear to the astute gentlemen
in Toulouse," said he.

"Aye, ma foi, a most likely story," said I. "When
they come to consider the profit that you are losing by
not apprehending the Vicomte, and can think of none
that you are making, they will have little difficulty in
believing you."

"But what of this evidence you refer to?"

"You have, I take it, discovered no incriminating
evidence — no documents that will tell against the
Vicomte?"

"No, monsieur, it is true that I have not — "

He stopped and bit his lip, my smile making him
aware of his indiscretion.

" Very well, then, you must invent some evidence to
prove that he was in no way associated with the re-
bellion."

"Monsieur de Bardelys," said he very insolently,
"we waste time in idle words. If you think that I will
imperil my neck for the sake of serving you or the
Vicomte, you are most prodigiously at fault."

" I have never thought so. But I have thought that
you might be induced to imperil your neck — as you
have it — for its own sake, and to the end that you
might save it."

He moved away. "Monsieur, you talk in vain.
You have no royal warrant to supersede mine. Do
what you will when you come to Toulouse," and he
smiled darkly. "Meanwhile, the Vicomte goes with
me."

"You have no evidence against him!" I cried,
scarce believing that he would dare to defy me and
that I had failed.

230 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

"I have the evidence of my word. I am ready to
swear to what I know — that whilst I was here at
Lavedan, some weeks ago, I discovered his connection
with the rebels."

"And what think you, miserable fool, shall your
word weigh against mine?" I cried. "Never fear,
Monsieur le Chevalier, I shall be in Toulouse to give
you the lie by showing that your word is a word to
which no man may attach faith, and by exposing to
the King your past conduct. If you think that, after I
have spoken, King Louis whom they name the Just
will suffer the trial of the Vicomte to go further on
your instigation, or if you think that you will be able
to slip your own neck from the noose I shall have set
about it, you are an infinitely greater fool than I deem
you."

He stood and looked at me over his shoulder, his face
crimson, and his brows black as a thundercloud.

"All this may betide when you come to Toulouse,
Monsieur de Bardelys," said he darkly, "but from
here to Toulouse it is a matter of some twenty
leagues."

With that, he turned on his heel and left me, baffled
and angry, to puzzle out the inner meaning of his
parting words.

He gave his men the order to mount, and bade
Monsieur de Lavedan enter the coach, whereupon
Gilles shot me a glance of inquiry. For a second, as I
stepped slowly after the Chevalier, I was minded to
try armed resistance, and to convert that grey court-
yard into a shambles. Then I saw betimes the futility
of such a step, and I shrugged my shoulders in answer
to my servant's glance.

SAINT-EUSTACHE IS OBSTINATE 231

I would have spoken to the Vicomte ere he departed,
but I was too deeply chagrined and humiliated by
my defeat. So much so that I had no room in my
thoughts even for the very natural conjecture of what
Lavedan must be thinking of me. I repented me then
of my rashness in coming to Lavedan without having
seen the King — as Castelroux had counselled me.
I had come indulging vain dreams of a splendid over-
throw of Saint-Eustache. I had thought to shine he-
roically in Mademoiselle's eyes, and thus I had hoped
that both gratitude for having saved her father and
admiration at the manner in which I had achieved it
would predispose her to grant me a hearing in which
I might plead my rehabilitation. Once that were
accorded me, I did not doubt I should prevail.

Now my dream was all dispelled, and my pride had
suffered just such a humiliating fall as the moralists
tell us pride must ever suffer. There seemed little left
me but to go hence with lambent tail, like a dog that
has been whipped — my dazzling escort become a
mockery but that it served the more loudly to adver-
tise my true impotency.

As I approached the carriage, the Vicomtesse swept
suddenly down the steps and came towards me with a
friendly smile. "Monsieur de Bardelys," said she,
"we are grateful for your intervention in the cause
of that rebel my husband."

"Madame," I besought her, under my breath, "if
you would not totally destroy him, I beseech you to
be cautious. By your leave, I will have my men re-
freshed, and thereafter I shall take the road to Tou-
louse again. I can only hope that my intervention
with the King may bear better fruit."

232 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

Although I spoke in a subdued key, Saint-Eustache,
who stood near us, overheard me, as his face very
clearly testified.

" Remain here, sir," she replied, with some effusion,
"and follow us when you are rested."

"Follow you?" I inquired. "Do you then go with
Monsieur de Lavedan?"

"No, Anne," said the Vicomte politely from the
carriage. "It will be tiring you unnecessarily. You
were better advised to remain here until my return."

I doubt not that the poor Vicomte was more con-
cerned with how she would tire him than with how the
journey might tire her. But the Vicomtesse was not
to be gainsaid. The Chevalier had sneered when the
Vicomte spoke of returning. Madame had caught
that sneer, and she swung round upon him now with
the vehement fury of a virago.

"He'll not return, you think, you Judas!" she
snarled at him, her lean, swarthy face growing very
evil to see. "But he shall — by God, he shall! And
look to your skin when he does, monsieur the catch-
poll, for, on my honour, you shall have a foretaste of
hell for your trouble in this matter."

The Chevalier smiled with much restraint. "A
woman's tongue," said he, "does no injury."

"Will a woman's arm, think you?" demanded that
warlike matron. " You musk-stinking tipstaff, I'll — "

"Anne, my love," implored the Vicomte soothingly,
"I beg that you will control yourself."

" Shall I submit to the insolence of this misbegotten
vassal? Shall I—"

"Remember rather that it does not become the
dignity of your station to address the fellow. We

SAINT-EUSTACHE IS OBSTINATE 233

avoid venomous reptiles, but we do not pause to re-
proach them with their venom. God made them so."

Saint-Eustache coloured to the roots of his hair,
then, turning hastily to the driver, he bade him start.
He would have closed the door with that, but that
madame thrust herself forward.

That was the Chevalier's chance to be avenged.
"You cannot go," said he.

"Cannot?" Her cheeks reddened. "Why not,
monsieur 1'espion?"

"I have no reasons to afford you," he answered
brutally. "You cannot go."

"Your pardon, Chevalier," I interposed. "You go
beyond your rights in seeking to prevent her. Mon-
sieur le Vicomte is not yet convicted. Do not, I be-
seech you, transcend the already odious character of
your work."

And without more ado I shouldered him aside, and
held the door that she might enter. She rewarded
me with a smile — half vicious, half whimsical, and
mounted the step. Saint-Eustache would have in-
terfered. He came at me as if resenting that shoulder-
thrust of mine, and for a second I almost thought he
would have committed the madness of striking me.

"Take care, Saint-Eustache," I said very quietly,
my eyes fixed on his. And much as dead Caesar's
ghost may have threatened Brutus with Philippi —
"We meet at Toulouse, Chevalier," said I, and closing
the carriage door I stepped back.

There was a flutter of skirts behind me. It was
mademoiselle. So brave and outwardly so calm until
now, the moment of actual separation — and added
thereunto perhaps her mother's going and the loneli-

234 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

ness that for herself she foresaw — proved more than
she could endure. I stepped aside, and she swept past
me and caught at the leather curtain of the coach.

"Father! "she sobbed.

There are some things that a man of breeding may
not witness — some things to look upon which is near
akin to eavesdropping or reading the letters of an-
other. Such a scene did I now account the present
one, and, turning, I moved away. But Saint-Eu-
stache cut it short, for scarce had I taken three paces
when his voice rang out the command to move. The
driver hesitated, for the girl was stillj hanging at the
window. But a second command, accompanied by a
vigorous oath, overcame his hesitation. He gathered
up his reins, cracked his whip, and the lumbering
wheels began to move.

"Have a care, child!" I heard the Vicomte cry —
"have a care! Adieu, mon enfant !"

She sprang back, sobbing, and assuredly she would
have fallen, thrown out of balance by the movement of
the coach, but that I put forth my hands and caught
her.

I do not think she knew whose were the arms that
held her for that brief space; so desolated was she by
the grief so long repressed. At last she realized that it
was this worthless Bardelys against whom she rested;
this man who had wagered that he would win and wed
her; this impostor who had come to her under an
assumed name; this knave who had lied to her as
no gentleman could have lied, swearing to love her,
whilst, in reality, he did no more than seek to win a
wager. When all this she realized, she shuddered a
second, then moved abruptly from my grasp, and,

SAINT-EUSTACHE IS OBSTINATE 235

without so much as a glance at me, she left me, and,
ascending the steps of the chateau, she passed from
my sight.

I gave the order to dismount as the last of Saint-
Eustache's followers vanished under the portcullis.

CHAPTER XIX
THE FLINT AND THE STEEL

MADEMOISELLE will see you, monsieur," said
Anatole at last.

Twice already had he carried unavailingly my re-
quest that Roxalanne should accord me an interview
ere I departed. On this the third occasion I had bid-
den him say that I would not stir from Lavedan until
she had done me the honour of hearing me. Seem-
ingly that threat had prevailed where entreaties had
been scorned.

I followed Anatole from the half-light of the hall in
which I had been pacing into the salon overlooking
the terraces and the river, where Roxalanne awaited
me. She was standing at the farther end of the room
by one of the long windows, which was open, for, al-
though we were already in the first week of October,
the air of Languedoc was as warm and balmy as that
of Paris or Picardy is in summer.

I advanced to the centre of the chamber, and there
I paused and waited until it should please her to
acknowledge my presence and turn to face me. I was
no fledgling. I had seen much, I had learnt much and
been in many places, and my bearing was wont to
convey it. Never in my life had I been gauche, for
which I thank my parents, and if years ago — long
years ago — a certain timidity had marked my first
introductions to the Louvre and the Luxembourg,
that timidity was something from which I had long

THE FLINT AND THE STEEL 237

since parted company. And yet it seemed to me, as I
stood in that pretty, sunlit room awaiting the pleasure
of that child, scarce out of her teens, that some of the
awkwardness I had escaped in earlier years, some of
the timidity of long ago, came to me then. I shifted
the weight of my body from one leg to the other; I
fingered the table by which I stood; I pulled at the hat
I held; my colour came and went; I looked at her
furtively from under bent brows, and I thanked God
that her back being towards me she might not see
the clown I must have seemed.

At length, unable longer to brook that discompos-
ing silence —

"Mademoiselle!" I called softly. The sound of
my own voice seemed to invigorate me, to strip me
of my awkwardness and self-consciousness. It broke
the spell that for a moment had been over me,
and brought me back to myself — to the vain, self-
confident, flamboyant Bardelys that perhaps you
have pictured from my writings.

"I hope, monsieur," she answered, without turning,
" that what you may have to say may justify in some
measure your very importunate insistence."

On my life, this was not encouraging. But now that
I was master of myself, I was not again so easily to be
disconcerted. My eyes rested upon her as she stood
almost framed in the opening of that long window.
How straight and supple she was, yet how dainty and
slight withal! She was far from being a tall woman,
but her clean length of limb, her very slightness, and
the high-bred poise of her shapely head, conveyed
an illusion of height unless you stood beside her. The
illusion did not sway me then. I saw only a child; but

238 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

a child with a great spirit, with a great soul that
seemed to accentuate her physical helplessness. That
helplessness, which I felt rather than saw, wove into
the warp of my love. She was in grief just then — in
grief at the arrest of her father, and at the dark fate
that threatened him; in grief at the unworthiness of a
lover. Of the two which might be the more bitter it
was not mine to judge, but I burned to gather her
to me, to comfort and cherish her, to make her one
with me, and thus, whilst giving her something of
my man's height and strength, cull from her some-
thing of that pure, noble spirit, and thus sanctify
my own.

I had a moment's weakness when she spoke. I was
within an ace of advancing and casting myself upon
my knees like any Lenten penitent, to sue forgiveness.
But I set the inclination down betimes. Such expedi-
ents would not avail me here.

"What I have to say, mademoiselle," I answered
after a pause, "would justify a saint descending into
hell; or, rather, to make my metaphor more apt,
would warrant a sinner's intrusion into heaven."

I spoke solemnly, yet not too solemnly; the least
slur of a sardonic humour was in my tones.

She moved her head upon the white column of her
neck, and with the gesture one of her brown curls be-
came disordered. I could fancy the upward tilt of her
delicate nose, the scornful curve of her lip as she
answered shortly —

"Then say it quickly, monsieur."

And, being thus bidden, I said quickly —

"I love you, Roxalanne."

Her heel beat the shimmering parquet of the floor;

THE FLINT AND THE STEEL 239

she half turned towards me, her cheek flushed, her lip
tremulous with anger.

"Will you say what you have to say, monsieur?"
she demanded in a concentrated voice, "and having
said it, will you go?"

"Mademoiselle, I have already said it," I answered,
with a wistful smile.

"Oh!" she gasped. Then suddenly facing round
upon me, a world of anger in her blue eyes — eyes
that I had known dreamy, but which were now very
wide awake. "Was it to offer me this last insult you
forced your presence upon me? Was it to mock me
with those words, me — a woman, with no man about
me to punish you ? Shame, sir ! Yet it is no more than
I might look for in you."

"Mademoiselle, you do me grievous wrong — " I
began.

"I do you no wrong," she answered hotly, then
stopped, unwillingly haply to be drawn into conten-
tion with me. "Enfin, since you have said what you
came to say — will you go?" And she pointed to the
door.

"Mademoiselle, mademoiselle — " I began in a
voice of earnest intercession.

" Go ! " she interrupted angrily, and for a second the
violence of her voice and gesture almost reminded
me of the Vicomtesse. "I will hear no more from
you."

"Mademoiselle, you shall," I answered no whit
less firmly.

" I will not listen to you. Talk if you will. You
shall have the walls for audience." And she moved
towards the door, but I barred her passage. I was

240 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

courteous to the last degree; I bowed low before her
as I put myself in her way.

"It is all that was wanting — that you should offer
me violence!" she exclaimed.

"God forbid!" said L

"Then let me pass."

"Aye, when you have heard me."

"I do not wish to hear you. Nothing that you may
say can matter to me. Oh, monsieur, if you have any
instincts of gentility, if you have any pretension to be
accounted anything but a mauvais sujet, I beg of you
to respect my grief. You witnessed, yourself, the
arrest of my father. This is no season for such a scene
as you are creating."

"Pardon! It is in such a season as this that you
need the comfort and support that the man you love
alone can give you."

"The man I love?" she echoed, and from flushed
that they had been, her cheeks went very pale. Her
eyes fell for an instant, then they were raised again,
and their blue depths were offered me. " I think, sir,"
she said, through her teeth, "that your insolence
transcends all belief."

"Can you deny it?" I cried. "Can you deny that
you love me? If you can — why, then, you lied to me
three nights ago at Toulouse ! "

That smote her hard — so hard that she forgot her
assurance that she would not listen to me — her
promise to herself that she would stoop to no conten-
tion with me.

"If, in a momentary weakness, in my nescience of
you as you truly are, I did make some such admission,
I did entertain such feelings for you, things have come

THE FLINT AND THE STEEL 241

to my knowledge since then, monsieur, that have re-
vealed you to me as another man; I have learnt some-
thing that has utterly withered such love as I then
confessed. Now, monsieur, are you satisfied, and will
you let me pass?" She said the last words with a re-
turn of her imperiousness, already angry at having
been drawn so far.

"I am satisfied, mademoiselle/' I answered brutally,
" that you did not speak the truth three nights ago.
You never loved me. It was pity that deluded you,
shame that urged you — shame at the Delilah part
you had played and at your betrayal of me. Now,
mademoiselle, you may pass," said I.

And I stood aside, assured that as she was a woman
she would not pass me now. Nor did she. She recoiled
a step instead. Her lip quivered. Then she recovered
quickly. Her mother might have told her that she
was a fool for engaging herself in such a duel with me
— me, the veteran of a hundred amorous combats.
Yet though I doubt not it was her first assault-at-
arms of this description, she was more than a match
for me, as her next words proved.

" Monsieur, I thank you for enlightening me. I can-
not, indeed, have spoken the truth three nights ago
You are right, I do not doubt it now, and you lift from
me a load of shame."

Dieu! It was like a thrust in the high lines, and its
hurtful violence staggered me. I was finished, it
seemed. The victory was hers, and she but a child
with no practice of Cupid's art of fence!

"Now, monsieur," she added, "now that you are
satisfied that you did wrong to say I loved you, now
that we have disposed of that question — adieu!"

242 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

"A moment yet!" I cried. "We have disposed of
that, but there was another point, an earlier one,
which for the moment we have disregarded. We have
— you have — disproved the love I was so presump-
tuous as to believe you fostered for me. We have yet
to reckon with the love / bear you, mademoiselle, and
of that we shall not be able to dispose so readily."

With a gesture of weariness or of impatience, she
turned aside. "What is it you want? What do you
seek to gain by thus provoking me? To win your
wager?" Her voice was cold. Who to have looked
upon that childlike face, upon those meek, pondering
eyes, could have believed her capable of so much
cruelty?

"There can no longer be any question of my wager;
I have lost and paid it," said I.

She looked up suddenly. Her brows met in a frown
of bewilderment. Clearly this interested her. Again
was she drawn.

"How?" she asked. "You have lost and paid it?"

"Even so. That odious, cursed, infamous wager
was the something which I hinted at so often as stand-
ing between you and me. The confession that so often
I was on the point of making — that so often you
urged me to make — concerned that wager. Would to
God, Roxalanne, that I had told you!" I cried, and it
seemed to me that the sincerity ringing in my voice
drove some of the harshness from her countenance,
some of the coldness from her glance.

"Unfortunately," I pursued, "it always seemed to
me either not yet time, or already too late. Yet so
soon as I regained my liberty, my first thought was of
that. While the wager existed I might not ask you to

THE FLINT AND THE STEEL 243

become my wife, lest I should seem to be carrying out
the original intention which embarked me upon the
business of wooing you, and brought me here to
Languedoc. And so my first step was to seek out
Chatellerault and deliver him my note of hand for my
Picardy possessions, the bulk — by far the greater
bulk — of all my fortune. My second step was to re-
pair to you at the Hotel de 1'Epee.

"At last I could approach you with clean hands; I
could confess what I had done; and since it seemed to
me that I had made the utmost atonement, I was
confident of success. Alas! I came too late. In the
porch of the auberge I met you as you came forth.
From my talkative intendant you had learnt already
the story of that bargain into which Bardelys had en-
tered. You had learnt who I was, and you thought
that you had learnt why I wooed you. Accordingly
you could but despise me."

She had sunk into a chair. Her hands were folded
in a listless manner in her lap, and her eyes were
lowered, her cheeks pale. But the swift heave of her
bosom told me that my words were not without effect.

"Do you know nothing of the bargain that I made
with Chatellerault ?" she asked in a voice that held, I
thought, some trace of misery.

"Chatellerault was a cheat!" I cried. "No man of
honour in France would have accounted himself under
obligation to pay that wager. I paid it, not because I
thought the payment due, but that by its payment I
might offer you a culminating proof of my sincerity."

"Be that as it may," said she, "I passed him my
word to — to marry him, if he set you at liberty."

"The promise does not hold, for when you made it I

244 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

was at liberty already. Besides, Chatellerault is dead
by now — or very near it."

"Dead?" she echoed, looking up.

"Yes, dead. We fought - The ghost of a smile,
of sudden, of scornful understanding, passed like a ray
of light across her face. "Pardieu!" I cried, "you do
me a wrong there. It was not by my hands that he
fell. It was not by me that the duel was instigated."

And with that I gave her the whole details of the
affair, including the information that Chatellerault
had been no party to my release, and that for his
attempted judicial murder of me the King would have
dealt very hardly with him had he not saved the King
the trouble by throwing himself upon his sword.

There was a silence when I had done. Roxalanne
sat on, and seemed to ponder. To let all that I had
said sink in and advocate my cause, as to me was very
clear it must, I turned aside and moved to one of the
windows.

"Why did you not tell me before?" she asked
suddenly. "Why — oh, why — did you not confess
to me the whole infamous affair as soon as you came
to love me, as you say you did?"

"As I say I did?" I repeated after her. "Do you
doubt it? Can you doubt it in the face of what I have
done?"

"Oh, I don't know what to believe!" she cried, a
sob in her voice. "You have deceived me so far, so
often. Why did you not tell me that night on the
river? Or later, when I pressed you in this very house?
Or again, the other night in the prison of Toulouse?"

" You ask me why. Can you not answer the ques-
tion for yourself ? Can you not conceive the fear that

THE FLINT AND THE STEEL 245

was in me that you should shrink away from me in
loathing ? The fear that if you cared a little, I might
for all time stifle such affection as you bore me? The
fear that I must ruin your trust in me? Oh, mademoi-
selle, can you not see how my only hope lay in first
owning defeat to Chatellerault, in first paying the
wager ?"

"How could you have lent yourself to such a bar-
gain?" was her next question.

"How, indeed?" I asked in my turn. "From your
mother you have heard something of the reputation
that attaches to Bardelys. I was a man of careless
ways, satiated with all the splendours life could give
me, nauseated by all its luxuries. Was it wonderful
that I allowed myself to be lured into this affair? It
promised some excitement, a certain novelty, difficul-
ties in a path that I had — alas ! — ever found all too
smooth — for Chatellerault had made your reputed
coldness the chief bolster of his opinion that I should
not win.

"Again, I was not given to over-nice scruples. I
make no secret of my infirmities, but do not blame me
too much. If you could see the fine demoiselles we
have in Paris, if you could listen to their tenets and
take a deep look into their lives, you would not marvel
at me. I had never known any but these. On the
night of my coming to Lavedan, your sweetness, your
pure innocence, your almost childish virtue, dazed
me by their novelty. From that first moment I be-
came your slave. Then I was in your garden day by
day. And here, in this old Languedoc garden with
you and your roses, during the languorous days of my
convalescence, is it wonderful that some of the purity,

246 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

some of the sweetness that was of you and of your
roses, should have crept into my heart and cleansed
it a little? Ah, mademoiselle!" I cried — and, coming
close to her, I would have bent my knee in inter-
cession but that she restrained me.

"Monsieur," she interrupted, "we harass ourselves
in vain. This can have but one ending."

Her tones were cold, but the coldness I knew was
forced — else had she not said "we harass ourselves."
Instead of quelling my ardour, it gave it fuel.

"True, mademoiselle," I cried, almost exultantly.
"It can end but one way!"

She caught my meaning, and her frown deepened.
I went too fast, it seemed.

"It had better end now, monsieur. There is too
much between us. You wagered to win me to wife."
She shuddered. "I could never forget it."

"Mademoiselle," I denied stoutly, "I did not."

"How?" She caught her breath. "You did not?"

"No," I pursued boldly. "I did not wager to win
you. I wagered to win a certain Mademoiselle de
Lavedan, who was unknown to me — but not you,
not you."

She smiled, with never so slight a touch of scorn.

"Your distinctions are very fine — too fine for me,

monsieur."

"I implore you to be reasonable. Think reason-
ably."

"Am I not reasonable? Do I not think? But there
is so much to think of!" she sighed. "You carried
your deception so far. You came here, for instance, as
Monsieur de Lesperon. Why that duplicity?"

"Again, mademoiselle, I did not," said I.

THE FLINT AND THE STEEL 247

She glanced at me with pathetic disdain.

"Indeed, indeed, monsieur, you deny things very
bravely."

"Did I tell you that my name was Lesperon?"
Did I present myself to monsieur your father as
Lesperon ? "

"Surely — yes."

"Surely no; a thousand times no. I was the victim
of circumstances in that, and if I turned them to my
own account after they had been forced upon me,
shall I be blamed and accounted a cheat? Whilst I
was unconscious, your father, seeking for a clue to my
identity, made an inspection of my clothes.

"In the pocket of my doublet they found some
papers addressed to Rene de Lesperon — some love
letters, a communication from the Due d'Orleans,
and a woman's portrait. From all of this it was as-
sumed that I was that Lesperon. Upon my return
to consciousness your father greeted me effusively,
whereat I wondered; he passed on to discuss — nay,
to tell me of — the state of the province and of his
own connection with the rebels, until I lay gasping at
his egregious temerity. Then, when he greeted me as
Monsieur de Lesperon, I had the explanation of it, but
too late. Could I deny the identity then ? Could I tell
him that I was Bardelys, the favourite of the King
himself? What would have occurred? I ask you,
mademoiselle. Would I not have been accounted a
spy, and would they not have made short work of
me here at your chateau?"

"No, no; they would have done no murder."

"Perhaps not, but I could not be sure just then.
Most men situated as your father was would have

248 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

despatched me. Ah, mademoiselle, have you not
proofs enough? Do you not believe me now?"

"Yes, monsieur," she answered simply, "I believe
you."

"Will you not believe, then, in the sincerity of my
love?"

She made no reply. Her face was averted, but from
her silence I took heart. I drew close to her. I set my
hand upon the tall back of her chair, and, leaning
towards her, I spoke with passionate heat as must
have melted, I thought, any woman who had not a
loathing for me.

"Mademoiselle, I am a poor man now," I ended.
"I am no longer that magnificent gentleman whose
wealth and splendour were a byword. Yet am I no
needy adventurer. I have a little property at Beau-
gency — a very spot for happiness, mademoiselle.
Paris shall know me no more. At Beaugency I shall
live at peace, in seclusion, and, so that you come
with me, in such joy as in all my life I have done
nothing to deserve. I have no longer an army of re-
tainers. A couple of men and a maid or two shall
constitute our household. Yet I shall account my
wealth well lost if for love's sake you'll share with me
the peace of my obscurity. I am poor, mademoiselle,
yet no poorer even now than that Gascon gentleman,
Rene de Lesperon, for whom you held me, and on
whom you bestowed the priceless treasure of your
heart."

"Oh, might it have pleased God that you had re-
mained that poor Gascon gentleman!" she cried.

"In what am I different, Roxalanne?"

"In that he had laid no wager," she answered^ ris-
ing suddenly.

THE FLINT AND THE STEEL 249

My hopes were withering. She was not angry. She
was pale, and her gentle face was troubled — dear
God! how sorely troubled! To me it almost seemed
that I had lost.

She flashed me a glance of her blue eyes, and I
thought that tears impended.

"Roxalanne!" I supplicated.

But she recovered the control that for a moment
she had appeared upon the verge of losing. She put
forth her hand.

"Adieu, monsieur!" said she.

I glanced from her hand to her face. Her attitude
began to anger me, for I saw that she was not only
resisting me, but resisting herself. In her heart the
insidious canker of doubt persisted. She knew — or
should have known — that it no longer should have
any place there, yet obstinately she refrained from
plucking it out. There was that wager. But for that
same obstinacy she must have realized the reason of
my arguments, the irrefutable logic of my payment.
She denied me, and in denying me she denied herself,
for that she had loved me she had herself told me, and
that she could love me again I was assured, if she
would but see the thing in the light of reason and of
justice.

"Roxalanne, I did not come to Lavedan to say
'Good-bye' to you. I seek from you a welcome, not a
dismissal."

" Yet my dismissal is all that I can give. Will you
not take my hand? May we not part in friendly
spirit?"

"No, we may not; for we do not part at all."

It was as the steel of my determination striking

250 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

upon the flint of hers. She looked up to my face for an
instant; she raised her eyebrows in deprecation; she
sighed, shrugged one shoulder, and, turning on her
heel, moved towards the door.

"Anatole shall bring you refreshment ere you go,"
she said in a very polite and formal voice.

Then I played my last card. Was it for nothing that
I had flung away my wealth? If she would not give
herself, by God, I would compel her to sell herself.
And I took no shame in doing it, for by doing it I was
saving her and saving myself from a life of unhappi-
ness.

"Roxalanne!" I cried. The imperiousness of my
voice arrested and compelled her — perhaps against
her very will.

"Monsieur?" said she, as demurely as you
please.

"Do you know what you are doing?"

"But yes — perfectly."

"Pardieu, you do not. I will tell you. You are send-
ing your father to the scaffold."

She turned livid, her step faltered, and she leant
against the frame of the doorway for support. Then
she stared at me, wide-eyed in horror.

"That is not true," she pleaded, yet without
conviction. "He is not in danger of his life. They
can prove nothing against him. Monsieur de Saint-
Eustache could find no evidence here — nothing."

" Yet there is Monsieur de Saint-Eustache's word;
there is the fact — the significant fact — that your
father did not take up arms for the King, to afford the
Chevalier's accusation some measure of corroboration.
At Toulouse in these times they are not particular.

THE FLINT AND THE STEEL 251

Remember how it had fared with me but for the
King's timely arrival."

That smote home. The last shred of her strength
fell from her. A great sob shook her, then covering
her face with her hands —

"Mother in heaven, have pity on me!" she cried.
"Oh, it cannot be, it cannot be!"

Her distress touched me sorely. I would have
consoled her, I would have bidden her have no fear,
assuring her that I would save her father. But for my
own ends, I curbed the mood. I would use this as a
cudgel to shatter her obstinacy, and I prayed that
God might forgive me if I did aught that a gentleman
should account unworthy. My need was urgent, my
love all-engrossing; winning her meant winning life
and happiness, and already I had sacrificed so much.
Her cry rang still in my ears, "It cannot be, it cannot
be!"

I trampled my nascent tenderness underfoot, and
in its room I set a harshness that I did not feel — a
harshness of defiance and menace.

"It can be, it will be, and, as God lives, it shall be,
if you persist in your unreasonable attitude."

"Monsieur, have mercy!"

"Yes, when you shall be pleased to show me the
way to it by having mercy upon me. If I have sinned,
I have atoned. But that is a closed question now; to
reopen it were futile. Take heed of this, Roxalanne:
there is one thing — one only in all France — can
save your father."

"That is, monsieur?" she inquired breathlessly.

"My word against that of Saint-Eustache. My
indication to His Majesty that your father's treason

252 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

is not to be accepted on the accusation of Saint-Eu-
stache. My information to the King of what I know
touching this gentleman."

"You will go, monsieur?" she implored me. "Oh,
you will save him ! Mon Dieu, to think of the time
that we have wasted here, you and I, whilst he is
being carried to the scaffold! Oh, I did not dream
it was so perilous with him ! I was desolated by his
arrest; I thought of some months' imprisonment,
perhaps. But that he should die — ! Monsieur de Bar-
delys, you will save him ! Say that you will do this
forme!"

She was on her knees to me now, her arms clasping
my boots, her eyes raised in entreaty — God, what
entreaty! — to my own.

"Rise, mademoiselle, I beseech you," I said, with
a quiet I was far from feeling. "There is no need for
this. Let us be calm. The danger to your father is not
so imminent. We may have some days yet — three
or four, perhaps."

I lifted her gently and led her to a chair. I was hard
put to it not to hold her supported in my arms. But I
might not cull that advantage from her distress. A
singular niceness, you will say, perhaps, as in your
scorn you laugh at me. Perhaps you are right to laugh
— yet are you not altogether right.

"You will go to Toulouse, monsieur?" she begged.

I took a turn in the room, then halting before her —

"Yes," I answered, "I will go."

The gratitude that leapt to her eyes smote me hard,
for my sentence was unfinished.

"I will go," I continued quickly, "when you shall
have promised to become my wife."

THE FLINT AND THE STEEL 253

The joy passed from her face. She glanced at me a
moment as if without understanding.

"I came to Lavedan to win you, Roxalanne, and
from Lavedan I shall not stir until I have accom-
plished my design," I said very quietly. "You will
therefore see that it rests with you how soon I may
set out."

She fell to weeping softly, but answered nothing.
At last I turned from her and moved towards the
door.

"Where are you going?" she cried.

"To take the air, mademoiselle. If upon delibera-
tion you can bring yourself to marry me, send me
word by Anatole or one of the others, and I shall set
out at once for Toulouse."

"Stop!" she cried. Obediently I stopped, my hand
already upon the doorknob. "You are cruel, mon-
sieur!" she complained.

"I love you," said I, by way of explaining it. "To
be cruel seems to be the way of love. You have been
cruel to me."

"Would you — would you take what is not freely
given?"

"I have the hope that when you see that you must
give, you will give freely."

"If — if I make you this promise — "

"Yes?" I was growing white with eagerness.

"You will fulfil your part of the bargain?"

" It is a habit of mine, mademoiselle — as witnesses
the case of Chatellerault." She shivered at the men-
tion of his name. It reminded her of precisely such
another bargain that three nights ago she had made.
Precisely, did I say? Well, not quite precisely.

254 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

'*! — I promise to marry you, then/' said she in a
choking voice, "whenever you choose, after my father
shall have been set at liberty."

I bowed. "I shall start at once," said I.

And perhaps out of shame, perhaps out of — who
shall say what sentiments? — I turned without an-
other word and left her.

CHAPTER XX
THE "BRA VI" AT BLAGNAC

I WAS glad to be in the open once more — glad
of the movement, as I rode at the head of my
brave company along the bank of the Garonne and
in the shade of the golden, autumn-tinted trees.

I was in a measure angry with myself that I had
driven such a bargain with Roxalanne, in a measure
angry with her that she had forced me to it by her
obstinacy. A fine gentleman I, on my soul, to have
dubbed Chatellerault a cheat for having done no
worse than I had now brought myself to do ! Yet, was
it so? No, I assured myself, it was not. A thousand
times no! What I had done I had done as much to
win Roxalanne to me as to win her from her own
unreasonableness. In the days to come she should
thank me for my harshness, for that which now she
perhaps accounted my unfairness.

Then, again, would I ask myself, was I very sure of
this? And so the two questions were flung the one
against the other; my conscience divided itself into
two parties, and they waged a war that filled me with
a depressing uncertainty.

In the end shame was overthrown, and I flung back
my head with a snort of assurance. I was doing no
wrong. On the contrary, I was doing right — both by
myself and by Roxalanne. What matter that I was
really cheating her? What matter that I had said I

256 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

would not leave Lavedan until I had her promise,
whilst in reality I had hurled my threat at Saint-
Eustache that I would meet him at Toulouse, and
passed my word to the Vicomtesse that I would
succour her husband?

I gave no thought to the hidden threat with which
Saint-Eustache had retorted that from Lavedan to
Toulouse was a distance of some twenty leagues. Had
he been a man of sterner purposes I might have been
uneasy and on my guard. But Saint-Eustache —
psh aw !

It is ill to underestimate an enemy, be he never so
contemptible, and for my disdain of the Chevalier I
might have paid dearly had not Fortune — which of
late had been practising singular jests upon me —
after seemingly abandoning me, returned to my aid at
the last moment.

It was Saint-Eustache's purpose that I should
never reach Toulouse alive, for in all the world I was
the one man he feared, the one man who would en-
compass his undoing and destruction by a word. And
so he had resolved and disposed that I should be re-
moved, and to accomplish this he had left a line of
bravi along the road I was to pass.

He had counted upon my lying the night in one of
the intervening towns, for the journey was over-long
to be accomplished at a stretch, and wherever I might
chance to lie, there I should have to reckon with his
assassins. The nearer Toulouse — although I knew
not this — the thicker grew my danger. Into the
very thick of it I rode; in the very thick of it I lay,
and all that came of it was that I obtained possession
of one more and overwhelming piece of evidence

THE BRAVI AT BLAGNAC 257

against my murderous Chevalier. But I outrun my
story.

It had been my purpose to change horses at Gre-
nade, and so push on and reach Toulouse that very
night or in the early hours of the following morning.
At Grenade, however, there were no horses to be ob-
tained, at least not more than three, and so, leaving
the greater portion of my company behind, I set out,
escorted only by Gilles and Antoine. Night had
fallen long before we reached Lespinasse, and with it
came foul weather. The wind rose from the west,
grew to the violence of a hurricane, and brought with
it such a deluge of cold, cutting rain as never had it
been my ill-chance to ride through. From Lespinasse
to Fenouillet the road dips frequently, and wherever
this occurred it seemed to us that we were riding in a
torrent, our horses fetlock-deep in mud.

Antoine complained in groans; Gilles growled
openly, and went the length of begging me, as we
rode through the ill-paved, flooded streets of Fe-
nouillet, to go no farther. But I was adamant in my
resolve. Soaked to the skin, my clothes hanging
sodden about me, and chilled to the marrow though
I was, I set my chattering teeth, and swore that we
should not sleep until we reached Toulouse.

"My God," he groaned, "and we but halfway!"

"Forward!" was all I answered; and so as mid-
night chimed we left Fenouillet behind us, and dashed
on into the open country and the full fury of the
tempest.

My servants came after me upon their stumbling
horses, whining and cursing by turns, and forgetting
in their misery the respect that they were accustomed

258 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

to pay me. I think now that it was a providence that
guided me. Had I halted at Fenouillet, as they would
have had me do, it is odds that this chronicle would
never have been penned, for likely enough I had had
my throat cut as I slept. A providence was it also
that brought my horse down within a half-mile of
Blagnac, and so badly did it founder that it might not
be ridden farther.

The beasts my men bestrode were in little better
condition, and so, with infinite chagrin, I was forced
to acknowledge defeat and to determine that at
Blagnac we should lie for the remainder of the night.
After all, it mattered little. A couple of hours' riding
in the morning would bring us to Toulouse, and we
would start betimes.

I bade Gilles dismount — he had been the louder in
his complainings — and follow us afoot, bringing my
horse to the Auberge de 1'Etoile at Blagnac, where he
would await him. Then I mounted his jaded beast,
and, accompanied by Antoine — the last of my re-
tainers — I rode into Blagnac, and pulled up at the
sign of the "Star."

With my whip I smote the door, and I had need to
smite hard if I would be heard above the wind that
shrieked and howled under the eaves of that narrow
street. Yet it almost seemed as if some one were
expected, for scarce had my knocking ceased when
the door was opened, and the landlord stood there,
shading a taper with his hand. For a moment I saw
the glow of its light on his rosy, white-bearded face,
then a gust of wind extinguished it.

" Diable ! " he swore, " an ugly night for travelling " ;
adding as an afterthought, "You ride late, monsieur."

THE BRAVI AT BLAGNAC 259

"You are a man of supreme discernment. Monsieur
1'Hote," said I testily, as I pushed him aside and
stepped into the passage. "Will you keep me in the
rain till daylight whilst you perpend how late I ride?
Is your ostler abed ? See to those beasts yourself, then.
Afterwards get me food — for me and for my man —
and beds for both of us."

"I have but one room, monsieur," he answered
respectfully. "You shall have that, and your servant
shall sleep in the hayloft."

"My servant sleeps in my room, if you have but
one. Set a mattress on the floor for him. Is this a
night to leave a dog to sleep in a hayloft? I have an-
other servant following. He will be here in a few
minutes. You must find room for him also — in the
passage outside my door, if no other accommodation
be possible."

"But, monsieur — " he began in a tone of protest,
which I set down to the way a landlord has of making
difficulties that he shall be the better paid for such
lodging as he finds us.

" See to it," I ordered peremptorily. "You shall be
well paid. Now go tend those horses."

On the wall of the passage fell a warm, reddish glow
from the common room, which argued a fire, and this
was too alluring to admit of my remaining longer in
discussion with him. I strode forward, therefore. The
Auberge de PEtoile was not an imposing hostelry, nor
one at which from choice I had made a halt. This
common room stank most vilely of oil, of burning
tallow — from the smoky tapers — and of I know not
what other noisome unsavourinesses.

As I entered, I was greeted by a resonant snore from

260 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

a man seated in a corner by the fire. His head had
fallen back, displaying the brown, sinewy neck, and
he slept — or seemed to sleep — with mouth wide
open. Full length on the hearth and in the red glare of
the burning logs lay what at first glance I took to be a
heap of rags, but which closer scrutiny showed me to
be another man, seemingly asleep also.

I flung my sodden castor on the table; I dropped
my drenched cloak on the ground, and stepped with
heavy tread and a'noisy rattle of spurs across the floor.
Yet my ragged gentleman slept on. I touched him
lightly with my whip.

"Hola, mon bonhomme!" I cried to him. Still he
did not move, whereat I lost patience and caught him
a kick full in the side, so choicely aimed that first it
doubled him up, then brought him into a sitting
posture, with the snarl of a cross-grained dog that has
been rudely aroused.

From out of an evil, dirty countenance a pair of
gloomy, bloodshot eyes scowled threateningly upon
me. The man on the chair awoke at the same instant,
and sat forward.

"Eh bien?" said I to my friend on the hearth.
"Will you stir yourself?"

"For whom?" he growled. "Is it not the Etoile as
much for me as for you, whoever you may be?"

"We have paid our lodging, pardieu!" swore he of
the chair.

"My masters," said I grimly, "if you have not eyes
to see my sodden condition, and if you therefore have
not the grace to move that I may approach the fire,
I'll see to it that you spend the night not only a
1'Etoile, but a la belle etoile." With which pleasantry,

THE BRAVI AT BLAGNAC 261

and a touch of the foot, I moved my friend aside. My
tone was not nice, nor do I generally have the air of
promising more than I can fulfil.

They were growling together in a corner when
Antoine came to draw off my doublet and my boots.
They were still growling when Gilles joined us pres-
ently, although at his coming they paused to take his
measure with their eyes. For Gilles was something of
a giant, and men were wont to turn their heads —
aye, and women too — to admire his fine proportions.
We supped — so vilely that I have not the heart to
tell you what we ate — and, having supped, I bade
my host light me to my chamber. As for my men, I
had determined that they should spend the night in
the common room, where there was a fire, and where
— notwithstanding the company of those two ruffians,
into whose presence I had not troubled to inquire — •
they would doubtless be better than elsewhere in
that poor hostelry.

In gathering up my cloak and doublet and other
effects to bear them off to the kitchen, the host would
have possessed himself also of my sword. But with a
laugh I took it from him, remarking that it required
no drying.

As we mounted the stairs, I heard something above
me that sounded like the creaking of a door. The host
heard it also, for he stood suddenly still, his glance
very questioning.

"What was that?" said he.

"The wind, I should say," I answered idly; and my
answer seemed to reassure him, for with a —

"Ah, yes — the wind," he went on.

Now, for all that I am far from being a man of

262 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

tremors or unwarranted fears, to tell the truth the
hostelry of the "Star" was beginning to fret my
nerves. I could scarce have told you why had you
asked me, as I sat upon the bed after mine host had
left me, and turned my thoughts to it. It was none of
the trivial incidents that had marked my coming; but
it was, I think, the combination of them all. First
there was the host's desire to separate me from my
men by suggesting that they should sleep in the hay-
loft. Clearly unnecessary, when he was not averse to
turning his common room into a dormitory. There
was his very evident relief when, after announcing
that I would have them sleep one in my room and one
in the passage by my door, I consented to their spend-
ing the night below; there was the presence of those
two very ill-looking cut- throats; there was the at-
tempt to carry off my sword; and, lastly, there was
that creaking door and the host's note of alarm.

What was that?

I stood up suddenly. Had my fancy, dwelling upon
that very incident, tricked me into believing that a
door had creaked again? I listened, but a silence
followed, broken only by a drone of voices ascending
from the common room. As I had assured the host
upon the stairs, so I now assured myself that it was
the wind, the signboard of the inn, perhaps, swaying
in the storm.

And then, when I had almost dismissed my doubts,
and was about to divest myself of my remaining
clothes, I saw something at which I thanked Heaven
that I had not allowed the landlord to carry off my
rapier. My eyes were on the door, and, as I gazed, I
beheld the slow raising of the latch. It was no delu-

THE BRAVI AT BLAGNAC 263

sion; my wits were keen and my eyes sharp; there
was no fear to make me see things that were not.
Softly I stepped to the bed-rail where I had hung my
sword by the baldrick, and as softly I unsheathed it.
The door was pushed open, and I caught the advance
of a stealthy step. A naked foot shot past the edge of
the door into my room, and for a second I thought of
pinning it to the ground with my rapier; then came a
leg, then a half-dressed body surmounted by a face —
the face of Rodenard !

At sight of it, amazement and a hundred suspicions
crossed my mind. How, in God's name, came he here,
and for what purpose did he steal so into my chamber ?

But my suspicions perished even as they were be-
gotten. There was so momentous, so alarmingly
warning a look on his face as he whispered the one
word "Monseigneur!" that clearly if danger there
was to me it was not from him.

"What the devil- " I began.

But at the sound of my voice the alarm grew in his
eyes.

["Sh!" he whispered, his finger on his lips. "Be
silent, monseigneur, for Heaven's sake!"

Very softly he closed the door; softly, yet painfully,
he hobbled forward to my side.

"There is a plot to murder you, monseigneur/' he
whispered.

"What! Here at Blagnac?"

He nodded fearfully.

"Bah!" I laughed. "You rave, man. Who was to
know that I was to come this way? And who is there
to plot against my life?"

"Monsieur de Saint-Eustache," he answered.

264 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

"And for the rest, as to expecting you here, they did
not, but they were prepared against the remote chance
of your coming. From what I have gathered, there is
not a hostelry betwixt this and Lavedan at which the
Chevalier has not left his cut-throats with the promise
of enormous reward to the men who shall kill you."

I caught my breath at that. My doubts vanished.

"Tell me what you know," said I. "Be brief."

Thereupon this faithful dog, whom I had so sorely
beaten but four nights ago, told me how, upon finding
himself able to walk once more, he had gone to seek
me out, that he might implore me to forgive him and
not cast him off altogether, after a lifetime spent in
the service of my father and of myself.

He had discovered from Monsieur de Castelroux
that I was gone to Lavedan, and he determined to
follow me thither. He had no horse and little money,
and so he had set out afoot that very day, and dragged
himself as far as Blagnac, where, however, his strength
had given out, and he was forced to halt. A providence
it seemed that this had so befallen. For here at the
fitoile he had that evening overheard Saint-Eustache
in conversation with those two bravi below stairs. It
would seem from what he had said that at every
hostelry from Grenade to Toulouse — at which it was
conceivable that I might spend the night — the
Chevalier had made a similar provision.

At Blagnac, if I got so far without halting, I must
arrive very late, and therefore the Chevalier had
bidden his men await me until daylight. He did not
believe, however, that I should travel so far, for he
had seen to it that I should find no horses at the post-
houses. But it was just possible that I might, never-

THE BRAVI AT BLAGNAC 265

theless, push on, and Saint-Eustache would let no
possibility be overlooked. Here at Blagnac the land-
lord, Rodenard informed me, was also in Saint-Eu-
stache's pay. Their intention was to stab me as I
slept.

"Monseigneur," he ended, "knowing what danger
awaited you along the road, I have sat up all night,
praying God and His saints that you might come this
far, and that thus I might warn you. Had I been less
bruised and sore, I had got myself a horse and ridden
out to meet you; as it was, I could but hope and pray
that you would reach Blagnac, and that — "

I gathered him into my arms at that, but my em-
brace drew a groan from him, for the poor, faithful
knave was very sore.

"My poor Ganymede!" I murmured, and I was
more truly moved to sympathy, I think, than ever I
had been in all my selfish life. Hearing his sobriquet,
a look of hope gleamed suddenly in his eye.

" You will take me back, monseigneur ? " he pleaded.
" You will take me back, will you not? I swear that I
will never let my tongue -

" 'Sh, my good Ganymede. Not only will I take you
back, but I shall strive to make amends for my bru-
tality. Come, my friend, you shall have twenty golden
louis to buy unguents for your poor shoulders."

"Monseigneur is very good," he murmured, where-
upon I would have embraced him again but that he
shivered and drew back.

"No, no, monseigneur," he whispered fearfully.
"It is a great honour, but it — it pains me to be
touched."

"Then take the will for the deed. And now for

266 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

these gentlemen below stairs." I rose and moved to
the door.

"Order Gilles to beat their brains out," was Gany-
mede's merciful suggestion.

I shook my head. " We might be detained for doing
murder. We have no proof yet of their intentions. I
think - ' An idea flashed suddenly across my mind.
"Go back to your room, Ganymede," I bade him.
"Lock yourself in, and do not stir until I call you. I
do not wish their suspicions aroused."

I opened the door, and as Ganymede obediently
slipped past me and vanished down the passage -

"Monsieur 1'Hote," I called. "Ho, there, Gilles!"

"Monsieur," answered the landlord.

" Monseigneur," replied Gilles; and there came a
stir below.

"Is aught amiss? "the landlord questioned, a note
of concern in his voice.

"Amiss? " I echoed peevishly, mincing my words as
I uttered them. "Pardi! Must I be put to it to un-
dress myself, whilst those two lazy dogs of mine are
snoring beneath me? Come up this instant, Gilles.
And," I added as an afterthought, "you had best
sleep here in my room."

"At once, monseigneur," answered he, but I
caught the faintest tinge of surprise in his accents, for
never yet had it fallen to the lot of sturdy, clumsy
Gilles to assist me at my toilet.

The landlord muttered something, and I heard
Gilles whispering his reply. Then the stairs creaked
under his heavy tread.

In my room I told him in half a dozen words what
was afoot. For answer, he swore a great oath that the

THE BRAVI AT BLAGNAC 267

landlord had mulled a stoup of wine for him, which he
never doubted now was drugged. I bade him go below
and fetch the wine, telling the landlord that I, too
had a fancy for it.

" But what of Antoine? " he asked. " They will drug
him."

"Let them. We can manage this affair, you and I,
without his help. If they did not drug him, they
might haply stab him. So that in being drugged lies
his safety."

As I bade him so he did, and presently he returned
with a great steaming measure. This I emptied into a
ewer, then returned it to him that he might take it
back to the host with my thanks and our appreciation.
Thus should we give them confidence that the way
was clear and smooth for them.

Thereafter there befell precisely that which already
you will be expecting, and nothing that you cannot
guess. It was perhaps at the end of an hour's silent
waiting that one of them came. We had left the door
unbarred so that his entrance was unhampered. But
scarce was he within when out of the dark, on either
side of him, rose Gilles and I. Before he had realized
it, he was lifted off his feet and deposited upon the bed
without a cry; the only sound being the tinkle of the
knife that dropped from his suddenly unnerved hand.

On the bed, with Gilles's great knee in his stomach,
and Gilles's hands at his throat, he was assured in un-
equivocal terms that at his slightest outcry we would
make an end of him. I kindled a light. We trussed
him hand and foot with the bedclothes, and then,
whilst he lay impotent and silent in his terror, I
proceeded to discuss the situation with him.

268 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

I pointed out that we knew that what he had done
he had done at Saint-Eustache's instigation, therefore
the true guilt was Saint-Eustache's and upon him
alone the punishment should fall. But ere this could
come to pass, he himself must add his testimony to
ours — mine and Rodenard's. If he would come to
Toulouse and do that — make a full confession of how
he had been set to do this murdering — the Chevalier
de Saint-Eustache, who was the real culprit, should be
the only one to suffer the penalty of the law. If he
would not do that, why, then, he must stand the
consequences himself — and the consequences would
be the hangman. But in either case he was coming to
Toulouse in the morning.

It goes without saying that he was reasonable. I
never for a moment held his judgment in doubt; there
is no loyalty about a cut-throat, and it is not the way
of his calling to take unnecessary risks.

We had just settled the matter in a mutually agree-
able manner when the door opened again, and his
confederate — rendered uneasy, no doubt, by his long
absence — came to see what could be occasioning
this unconscionable delay in the slitting of the throats
of a pair of sleeping men.

Beholding us there in friendly conclave, and no
doubt considering that under the circumstances his
intrusion was nothing short of an impertinence, that
polite gentleman uttered a cry — which I should like
to think was an apology for having disturbed us —
and turned to go with most indecorous precipitancy.

But Gilles took him by the nape of his dirty neck
and haled him back into the room. In less time than
it takes me to tell of it, he lay beside his colleague, and

THE BRAVI AT BLAGNAC 269

was being asked whether he did not think that he
might also come to take the same view of the situ-
ation. Overjoyed that we intended no worse by him,
he swore by every saint in the calendar that he would
do our will, that he had reluctantly undertaken the
Chevalier's business, that he was no cut-throat, but a
poor man with a wife and children to provide for.

And that, in short, was how it came to pass that the
Chevalier de Saint-Eustache himself, by disposing for
my destruction, disposed only for his own. With these
two witnesses, and Rodenard to swear how Saint-
Eustache had bribed them to cut my throat, with my-
self and Gilles to swear how the attempt had been
made and frustrated, I could now go to His Majesty
with a very full confidence, not only of having the
Chevalier's accusations, against whomsoever they
might be, discredited, but also of sending the Cheva-
lier himself to the gallows he had so richly earned.

CHAPTER XXI
LOUIS THE JUST

me," said the King, "these depositions were
not necessary. Your word, my dear Marcel,
would have sufficed. For the courts, however, perhaps
it is well that you have had them taken; moreover,
they form a valuable corroboration of the treason
which you lay to the charge of Monsieur de Saint-
Eustache."

We were standing -7— at least, La Fosse and I were
standing, Louis XIII sat — in a room of the Palace
of Toulouse, where I had had the honour of being
brought before His Majesty. La Fosse was there, be-
cause it would seem that the King had grown fond of
him, and could not be without him since his coming
to Toulouse.

His Majesty was, as usual, so dull and weary — not
even roused by the approaching trial of Montmorency,
which was the main business that had brought him
South — that even the company of this vapid, shallow,
but irrepressibly good-humoured La Fosse, with his
everlasting mythology, proved a thing desirable.

"I will see," said Louis, "that your friend the
Chevalier is placed under arrest at once, and as much
for his attempt upon your life as for the unstable
quality of his political opinions, the law shall deal
with him — conclusively." He sighed. "It always
pains me to proceed to extremes against a man of his

LOUIS THE JUST 271

stamp. To deprive a fool of his head seems a work of
supererogation."

I inclined my head, and smiled at his pleasantry.
Louis the Just rarely permitted himself to jest, and
when he did his humour was as like unto humour as
water is like unto wine. Still, when a monarch jests, if
you are wise, if you have a favour to sue, or a position
at Court to seek or to maintain, you smile, for all that
the ineptitude of his witless wit be rather provocative
of sorrow.

"Nature needs meddling with at times," hazarded
La Fosse, from behind His Majesty's chair. "This
Saint-Eustache is a sort of Pandora's box, which it is
well to close ere — "

"Go to the devil," said the King shortly. "We are
not jesting. We have to do justice."

"Ah! Justice," murmured La Fosse; "I have seen
pictures of the lady. She covers her eyes with a band-
age, but is less discreet where the other beauties of her
figure are in question."

His Majesty blushed. He was above all things a
chaste-minded man, modest as a nun. To the im-
modesty rampant about him he was in the habit of
closing his eyes and his ears, until the flagrancy or the
noise of it grew to proportions to which he might re-
main neither blind nor deaf.

" Monsieur de la Fosse," said he in an austere voice,
"you weary me, and when people weary me I send
them away — which is one of the reasons why I am
usually so much alone. I beg that you will glance at
that hunting-book, so that when I have done with
Monsieur de Bardelys you may give me your im-
pressions of it."

272 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

La Fosse fell back, obedient but unabashed, and,
moving to a table by the window, he opened the book
Louis had pointed out.

"Now, Marcel, while that buffoon prepares to in-
form me that the book has been inspired by Diana
herself, tell me what else you have to tell."

"Naught else, Sire."

" How naught ? What of this Vicomte de Lavedan ? "

"Surely Your Majesty is satisfied that there is no
charge — no heedful charge — against him?"

"Aye, but there is a charge — a very heedful one.
And so far you have afforded me no proofs of his
innocence to warrant my sanctioning his enlarge-
ment."

"I had thought, Sire, that it would be unnecessary
to advance proofs of his innocence until there were
proofs of his guilt to be refuted. It is unusual, Your
Majesty, to apprehend a gentleman so that he may
show cause why he did not deserve such apprehension.
The more usual course is to arrest him because there
are proofs of his guilt to be preferred against him."

Louis combed his beard pensively, and his melan-
choly eyes grew thoughtful.

"A nice point, Marcel," said he, and he yawned.
"A nice point. You should have been a lawyer."
Then, with an abrupt change of manner, "Do you
give me your word of honour that he is innocent?" he
asked sharply.

"If Your Majesty's judges offer proof of his guilt, I
give you my word that I will tear that proof to pieces."

"That is not an answer. Do you swear his inno-
cence?"

"Do I know what he carries in his conscience?"

LOUIS THE JUST 273

quoth I, still fencing with the question. "How can I
give my word in such a matter? Ah, Sire, it is not for
nothing that they call you Louis the Just," I pursued,
adopting cajolery and presenting him with his own
favourite phrase. "You will never allow a man against
whom there is no shred of evidence to be confined in
prison."

"Is there not?" he questioned. Yet his tone grew
gentler. History, he had promised himself, should
know him as Louis the Just, and he would do naught
that might jeopardize his claim to that proud title.
"There is the evidence of this Saint-Eustache!"

"Would Your Majesty hang a dog upon the word of
that double traitor?"

"Hum! You are a great advocate, Marcel. You
avoid answering questions; you turn questions aside
by counter-questions." He seemed to be talking more
to himself than tome. "You are a much better ad-
vocate than the Vicomte's wife, for instance. She
answers questions and has a temper — Ciel ! what a
temper!"

" You have seen the Vicomtesse?" I exclaimed, and
I grew cold with apprehension, knowing as I did the
licence of that woman's tongue.

"Seen her?" he echoed whimsically. "I have seen
her, heard her, well-nigh felt her. The air of this room
is still disturbed as a consequence of her presence. She
was here an hour ago."

"And it seemed," lisped La Fosse, turning from his
hunting-book, "as if the three daughters of Acheron
had quitted the domain of Pluto to take embodiment
in a single woman."

"I would not have seen her," the King resumed as

274 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

though La Fosse had not spoken, "but she would not
be denied. I heard her voice blaspheming in the ante-
chamber when I refused to receive her; there was a
commotion at my door; it was dashed open, and the
Swiss who held it was hurled into my room here as
though he had been a mannikin. Dieu! Since I have
reigned in France I have not been the centre of so
much commotion. She is a strong woman, Marcel —
the saints defend you hereafter, when she shall come
to be your mother-in-law. In all France, I'll swear,
her tongue is the only stouter thing than her arm.
But she's a fool."

"What did she say, Sire?" I asked in my anxiety.

"Say? She swore — Ciel! how she did swear! Not
a saint in the calendar would she let rest in peace; she
dragged them all by turns from their chapter-rolls to
bear witness to the truth of what she said."

"That was—"

"That her husband was the foulest traitor out of
hell. But that he was a fool with no wit of his own to
make him accountable for what he did, and that out
of folly he had gone astray. Upon those grounds she
besought me to forgive him and let him go. When I
told her that he must stand his trial, and that I could
offer her but little hope of his acquittal, she told me
things about myself, which in my conceit, and thanks
to you flatterers who have surrounded me, I had never
dreamed.

"She told me I was ugly, sour-faced, and mal-
formed; that I was priest-ridden and a fool; unlike
my brother, who, she assured me, is a mirror of
chivalry and manly perfections. She promised me
that Heaven should never receive my soul, though I

LOUIS THE JUST 275

told my beads from now till Doomsday, and she
prophesied for me a welcome among the damned
when my time comes. What more she might have
foretold I cannot say. She wearied me at last, for all
her novelty, and I dismissed her — that is to say," he
amended, " I ordered four musketeers to carry her out.
God pity you, Marcel, when you become her daugh-
ter^ husband!"

But I had no heart to enter into his jocularity.
This woman with her ungovernable passion and her
rash tongue had destroyed everything.

"I see no likelihood of being her daughter's hus-
band," I answered mournfully.

The King looked up, and laughed. " Down on your
knees, then," said he, " and render thanks to Heaven."

But I shook my head very soberly. "To Your
Majesty it is a pleasing comedy," said I, "but to me,
helas! it is nearer far to tragedy."

"Come, Marcel," said he, "may I not laugh a little?
One grows so sad with being King of France! Tell me
what vexes you."

"Mademoiselle de Lavedan has promised that she
will marry me only when I have saved her father from
the scaffold. I came to do it, very full of hope, Sire.
But his wife has forestalled me and, seemingly,
doomed him irrevocably."

His glance fell; his countenance resumed its habitual
gloom. Then he looked up again, and in the melan-
choly depths of his eyes I saw a gleam of something
that was very like affection.

"You know that I love you, Marcel," he said gently.
"Were you my own son I could not love you more.
You are a profligate, dissolute knave, and your

276 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

scandals have rung in my ears more than once ; yet
you are different from these other fools, and at least
you have never wearied me. To have done that is to
have done something. I would not lose you, Marcel;
as lose you I shall if you marry this rose of Languedoc,
for I take it that she is too sweet a flower to let wither
in the stale atmosphere of Courts. This man, this
Vicomte de Lavedan, has earned his death. Why
should I not let him die, since if he dies you will not
wed?"

" Do you ask me why, Sire ? " said I. " Because they
call you Louis the Just, and because no king was ever
more deserving of the title."

He winced; he pursed his lips, and shot a glance
at La Fosse, who was deep in the mysteries of his
volume. Then he drew towards him a sheet of paper,
and, taking a quill, he sat toying with it.

"Because they call me the Just, I must let Justice
take its course," he answered presently.

" But," I objected, with a sudden hope, " the course
of justice cannot lead to the headsman in the case of
the Vicomte de Lavedan."

"Why not?" And his solemn eyes met mine across
the table.

" Because he took no active part in the revolt. If he
was a traitor, he was no more than a traitor at heart,
and until a man commits a crime in deed he is not
amenable to the law's rigour. His wife has made his
defection clear; but it were unfair to punish him in the
same measure as you punish those who bore arms
against you, Sire."

"Ah! "he pondered. "Well? What more?"

"Is that not enough, Sire?" I cried. My heart beat

LOUIS THE JUST 277

quickly, and my pulses throbbed with the suspense of
that portentous moment.

He bent his head, dipped his pen and began to
write.

"What punishment would you have me mete out to
him?" he asked as he wrote. "Come, Marcel, deal
fairly with me, and deal fairly with him — for as you
deal with him, so shall I deal with you through him."

I felt myself paling in my excitement. "There is
banishment, Sire — it is usual in cases of treason that
are not sufficiently flagrant to be punished by death."

"Yes!" He wrote busily. "Banishment for how
long, Marcel? For his lifetime?"

"Nay, Sire. That were too long."

"For my lifetime, then?"

"Again that were too long."

He raised his eyes and smiled. "Ah! You turn
prophet? Well, for how long, then? Come, man."

"I should think five years — "

"Five years be it. Say no more."

He wrote on for a few moments; then he raised the
sandbox and sprinkled the document.

"Tiens!" he cried, as he dusted it and held it out to
me. "There is my warrant for the disposal of Mon-
sieur le Vicomte Leon de Lavedan. He is to go into
banishment for five years, but his estates shall suffer
no sequestration, and at the end of that period he may
return and enjoy them — we hope with better loyalty
than in the past. Get them to execute that warrant at
once, and see that the Vicomte starts to-day under
escort for Spain. It will also be your warrant to
Mademoiselle de Lavedan, and will afford proof to her
that your mission has been successful."

278 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

"Sire!" I cried. And in my gratitude I could say
no more, but I sank on my knee before him and raised
his hand to my lips.

"There," said he in a fatherly voice. " Go now, and
be happy."

As I rose, he suddenly put up his hand.

" Ma foi, I had all but forgotten, so much has Mon-
sieur de Lavedan's fate preoccupied us." He picked
up another paper from his table, and tossed it to
me. It was my note of hand to Chatellerault for my
Picardy estates.

"Chatellerault died this morning," the King pur-
sued. "He had been asking to see you, but when he
was told that you had left Toulouse, he dictated a long
confession of his misdeeds, which he sent to me to-
gether with this note of yours. He could not, he wrote,
permit his heirs to enjoy your estates; he had not won
them; he had really forfeited his own stakes, since he
had broken the rules of play. He has left me to deliver
judgment in the matter of his own lands passing into
your possession. What do you say to it, Marcel?"

It was almost with reluctance that I took up that
scrap of paper. It had been so fine and heroic a thing
to have cast my wealth to the winds of heaven for
love's sake, that on my soul I was loath to see myself
master of more than Beaugency. Then a compromise
suggested itself.

"The wager, Sire," said I, "is one that I take shame
in having entered upon; that shame made me eager to
pay it, although fully conscious that I had not lost.
But even now, I cannot, in any case, accept the forfeit
Chatellerault was willing to suffer. Shall we — shall
we forget that the wager was ever laid? "

LOUIS THE JUST 279

"The decision does you honour. It was what I had
hoped from you. Go now. Marcel. I doubt me you
are eager. When your love-sickness wanes a little we
shall hope to see you at Court again."

I sighed. "Helas, Sire, that would be never."

"So you said once before, monsieur. It is a foolish
spirit upon which to enter into matrimony; yet — like
many follies — a fine one. Adieu, Marcel!"

"Adieu, Sire!"

I had kissed his hands; I had poured forth my
thanks; I had reached the door already, and he was in
the act of turning to La Fosse, when it came into my
head to glance at the warrant he had given me. He
noticed this and my sudden halt.

"Is aught amiss?" he asked.

"You — you have omitted something, Sire," I ven-
tured, and I returned to the table. "I am already
so grateful that I hesitate to ask an additional favour.
Yet it is but troubling you to add a few strokes of the
pen, and it will not materially affect the sentence
itself."

He glanced at me, and his brows drew together as
he sought to guess my meaning.

"Well, man, what is it?" he demanded impati-
ently.

" It has occurred to me that this poor Vicomte, in a
strange land, alone, among strange faces, missing the
loved ones that for so many years he has seen daily by
his side, will be pitiably lonely."

The King's glance was lifted suddenly to my face.
"Must I then banish his family as well?"

"All of it will not be necessary, Your Majesty."

For once his eyes lost their melancholy, and as

280 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

hearty a burst of laughter as ever I heard from that
poor, weary gentleman he vented then.

"Gel! what a jester you are! Ah, but I shall miss
you!" he cried, as, seizing the pen, he added the word
I craved of him.

"Are you content at last?" he asked, returning the
paper to me.

1 glanced at it. The warrant now stipulated that
Madame la Vicomtesse de Lavedan should bear her
husband company in his exile.

"Sire, you are too good!" I murmured.

"Tell the officer to whom you entrust the execution
of this warrant that he will find the lady in the guard-
room below, where she is being detained, pending my
pleasure. Did she but know that it was your pleasure
she has been waiting upon, I should tremble for your
future when the five years expire."

CHAPTER XXII
WE UNSADDLE

MADEMOISELLE held the royal warrant of her
father's banishment in her hand. She was pale,
and her greeting of me had been timid. I stood before
her, and by the door stood Rodenard, whom I had
bidden attend me.

As I had approached Lavedan that day, I had been
taken with a great, an overwhelming shame at the bar-
gain I had driven. I had pondered, and it had come to
me that she had been right to suggest that in matters
of love what is not freely given it is not worth while to
take. And out of my shame and that conclusion had
sprung a new resolve. So that nothing might weaken
it, and lest, after all, the sight of Roxalanne should
bring me so to desire her that I might be tempted to
override my purpose, I had deemed it well to have the
restraint of a witness at our last interview. To this end
had I bidden Ganymede follow me into the very salon.

She read the document to the very end, then her
glance was raised timidly again to mine, and from me
it shifted to Ganymede, stiff at his post by the door.

"This was the best that you could do, monsieur?"
she asked at last.

"The very best, mademoiselle," I answered calmly.
" I do not wish to magnify my service, but it was that
or the scaffold. Madame your mother had, un-
fortunately, seen the King before me, and she had

282 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

prejudiced your father's case by admitting him to be a
traitor. There was a moment when in view of that I
was almost led to despair. I am glad, however, made-
moiselle, that I was so fortunate as to persuade the
King to just so much clemency."

"And for five years, then, I shall not see my par-
en ts." She sighed, and her distress was very touching.

"That need not be. Though they may not come to
France, it still remains possible for you to visit them
in Spain."

"True," she mused; "that will be something -
will it not?"

"Assuredly something; under the circumstances,
much."

She sighed again, and for a moment there was
silence.

"Will you not sit, monsieur?" said she at last. She
was very quiet to-day, this little maid — very quiet
and very wondrously subdued.

"There is scarce the need," I answered softly;
whereupon her eyes were raised to ask a hundred
questions. "You are satisfied with my efforts, made-
moiselle?" I inquired.

"Yes, I am satisfied, monsieur."

That was the end, I told myself, and involuntarily I
also sighed. Still, I made no shift to go.

"You are satisfied that I — that I have fulfilled
what I promised?"

Her eyes were again cast down, and she took a step
in the direction of the window.

"But yes. Your promise was to save my father
from the scaffold. You have done so, and I make no
doubt you have done as much to reduce the term of

WE UNSADDLE 283

his banishment as lay within your power. Yes, mon-
sieur, I am satisfied that your promise has been well
fulfilled."

Heigho! The resolve that I had formed in coming
whispered it in my ear that nothing remained but to
withdraw and go my way. Yet not for all that resolve
- not for a hundred such resolves — could I have
gone thus. One kindly word, one kindly glance at
least would I take to comfort me. I would tell her in
plain words of my purpose, and she should see that
there was still some good, some sense of honour in me,
and thus should esteem me after I was gone.

"Ganymede," said I.

"Monseigneur?"

"Bid the men mount."

At that she turned, wonder opening her eyes very
wide, and her glance travelled from me to Rodenard
with its unspoken question. But even as she looked at
him he bowed and, turning to do my bidding, left the
room. We heard his steps pass with a jingle of spurs
across the hall and out into the courtyard. We heard
his raucous voice utter a word of command, and there
was a stamping of hoofs, a champing of harness, and
all the bustle of preparation.

"Why have you ordered your men to mount?" she
asked at last.

"Because my business here is ended, and we are
going."

" Going ? " said she. Her eyes were lowered now, but
a frown suggested their expression to me. "Going
whither?"

"Hence," I answered. "That for the moment is all
that signifies." I paused to swallow something that

284 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

hindered a clear utterance. Then, "Adieu!" said I,
and I abruptly put forth my hand.

Her glance met mine fearlessly, if puzzled.

"Do you mean, monsieur, that you are leaving
Lavedan — thus?"

"So that I leave, what signifies the manner of my
going?"

"But" — the trouble grew in her eyes; her cheeks
seemed to wax paler than they had been- "but I
thought that — that we made a bargain."

"'Sh! mademoiselle, I implore you," I cried. "I
take shame at the memory of it. Almost as much
shame as I take at the memory of that other bargain
which first brought me to Lavedan. The shame of the
former one I have wiped out — although, perchance,
you think it not. I am wiping out the shame of the
latter one. It was unworthy in me, mademoiselle, but
I loved you so dearly that it seemed to me that no
matter how I came by you, I should rest content if I
but won you. I have since seen the error if it, the in-
justice of it. I will not take what is not freely given.
And so, farewell."

" I see, I see," she murmured, and ignored the hand
that I held out. "I am very glad of it, monsieur."

I withdrew my hand sharply. I took up my hat
from the chair on which I had cast it. She might have
spared me that, I thought. She need not have pro-
fessed joy. At least she might have taken my hand
and parted in kindness.

"Adieu, mademoiselle!" I said again, as stiffly as
might be, and I turned towards the door.

"Monsieur!" she called after me. I halted.

"Mademoiselle?"

WE UNSADDLE 285

She stood demurely, with eyes downcast and hands
folded. "I shall be so lonely here."

I stood still. I seemed to stiffen. My heart gave a
mad throb of hope, then seemed to stop. What did
she mean? I faced her fully once more, and, I doubt
not, I was very pale. Yet lest vanity should befool
me, I dared not act upon suspicions. And so —

"True, mademoiselle," said I. "You will be lonely.
I regret it."

As silence followed, I turned again to the door, and
my hopes sank with each step in that direction.

"Monsieur!"

Her voice arrested me upon the very threshold.

"What shall a poor girl do with this great estate
upon her hands? It will go to ruin without a man to
govern it."

"You must not attempt the task. You must em-
ploy an intendant."

I caught something that sounded oddly like a sob.
Could it be? Dieu ! could it be, after all ? Yet I would
not presume. I half turned again, but her voice
detained me. It came petulantly now.

"Monsieur de Bardelys, you have kept your
promise nobly. Will you ask no payment?"

"No, mademoiselle," I answered very softly; "I
can take no payment."

Her eyes were lifted for a second. Their blue depths
seemed dim. Then they fell again.

"Oh, why will you not help me?" she burst out, to
add more softly: "I shall never be happy without
you!"

"You mean?" I gasped, retracing a step, and fling-
ing my hat in a corner.

286 BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT

"That I love you. Marcel — that I want you!"

"And you can forgive — you can forgive?" I cried,
as I caught her.

Her answer was a laugh that bespoke her scorn of
everything — of everything save us two, of every-
thing save our love. That and the pout of her red
lips was her answer. And if the temptation of those
lips — But there! I grow indiscreet.

Still holding her, I raised my voice.

"GanymMe!" I called.

" Monseigneur ? " came his answer through the open
window.

"Bid those knaves dismount and unsaddle."

THE END

PR 6037 .A2 B37 1905 SMC
Sabatini, Rafael,
Bardelys the Magnificent